Rituals

To create an Abyssal Ichor, you must harvest the ink of a cephalopod with a ceramic blade made from jet or obsidian. The blade is not consumed by the ritual. The ink is then combined with one point of your Blood and stored in crystal vials away from any sunlight. This ritual allows you to create a single vial of Abyssal Ichor, that can be used as follows: - **As an ink:** If used as ink for a pen, a calligrapher will find it remarkably suitable. However, once the ink dries any writing produced with it cannot be seen by nonsupernatural creatures. This makes it a coveted substance for archaic harpies who prefer written records. If used for regular writing, a vial contains enough ink to last for 1 month. Any writing produced is permanent, as is the ink's magical effects. - **As an oil:** If the ichor is applied as an oil to an item, the item becomes less noticeable and gains the Nondescript quality (see MET VTM Chapter 13: Influences and Equipment, page 520). A single vial has enough substance to coat a single automobile or numerous smaller objects as determined by the Storyteller. The effects are not permanent and with concerted effort it can be washed or worn off. - **As poison:** The ichor itself is also a potent poison that has no taste or odor. Treat it as a virility 20 toxin (see Chapter 6: Core Systems, Drug and Poison Types). A single vial contains enough for 3 doses. It dissolves into any liquid it is added to without altering that liquid's taste and color. You may only create 5 vials per downtime action spent but may have any number of these vials in existence as you like as they are often traded for trivial boons or favors. The transmutation process of the ritual removes any trace of your vitae from the ink. It cannot create ghouls or blood bonds, does not create familiarity with you, and it does not enable any magic to be directed against you simply because the caster has possession of it.

To cast this ritual, you must summon up to 3 Arms of the Abyss which you ceremonially sever and consume. Each Arm of the Abyss you consume in this way lowers your maximum number of Arms of the Abyss by one. For the remainder of the night, you may activate this ritual once per each Arm of the Abyss previously consumed. Thereafter, whenever you are Grappling another character, you may spend a simple action to activate this ritual. If you do, you may disengage from the Grapple and take up to one step, leaving behind a shadow copy of yourself which will continue to restrain the target. The shadow has 3 health levels, and it can only maintain the Grapple; it cannot attack, and if the target gets free the shadow disappears. Its pools are identical to your own current test pools, including any modifiers or bonuses. Whenever a shadow used for Clap of Shadow is destroyed or its Grapple ends, your maximum number of Arms of the Abyss increases by one.

To cast Coagulated Darkness, you must spend 1 downtime and a number of Blood points up to a maximum equal to the number of Obtenebration powers you possess, including elder powers and techniques. After resting undisturbed in a lightless room for a minimum of three nights, the Blood points congeal into a number of small, black, gelatinous blood clots equal to the number of Blood points expended. Then, on the third night, you must consume the clots, or they will lose their power. Once consumed, your blood will visibly darken, causing your veins to be visible through your skin, appearing gray or black in color. For each point of Blood left out to coagulate and then ingested, your Blood Pool temporarily rises by that same amount for one game session. This blood does not count toward your maximum blood pool. These temporary Blood points can only be spent in two ways: to boost your Physical attribute for the duration of one challenge as per the rules for spending Blood (see **MET VTM, Chapter Seven: Dramatic Systems, page 294**), or to heal damage while in damage-induced torpor (see **MET VTM, Chapter Seven: Dramatic Systems, page 287**). Blood points from this ritual are exempt from the maximum amount of Blood points you may spend per turn; however, you cannot spend more points of Blood using this ritual than the number of points initially ingested when the ritual was cast. You may only have Blood from a single application of Coagulated Darkness ingested at a time, and you may only have a single casting active at a given time. If partway through the night you wish to cast this ritual again, you must first vomit any ingested yet unspent Blood from this ritual's previous casting. At the start of each night, all characters will regurgitate any unspent Blood from the night before.

Spend 5 minutes to heat a sigil of metal over a fire and then squelch its flames by dousing it with a point of your Blood. As the blood collects on the floor, it creates a momentary gateway to the Abyss. You can then reach through the gateway, and the lure of your essence will call a creature from the Abyss. After allowing the creature to latch on to you, you then feed it one point of your Blood and pull the Shadow Fiend into your realm. This Shadow Fiend is bound to you and obeys all of your commands, even to the detriment of its own well-being. A Shadow Fiend is considered a level 3 Stock NPC. It may choose from the following specializations (only one of which may be a discipline specialization): Obtenebration, Potence, Dominate, Brawl, Dodge, Stealth, and Intimidation. This fiend will be your ally and attempt to fulfill your verbal requests for the rest of the night. The fiend has the equivalent of a 5-point Blood pool, but it cannot feed. The Shadow Fiend can spy for you, ferry small objects, and send telepathic reports consisting of images and brief descriptions of events; it will even fight for you. You may only control one Shadow Fiend at a time. If you summon an additional one while another is already under your control, the first one is destroyed.

With proper preparation, the time spent navigating the Abyss can be somewhat mitigated. When employing Walk the Abyss you may choose to perform this ritual instead of chanting for 5 full turns. In addition, if you win the test for Walk the Abyss you spend 15 minutes in the Abyss before arriving at your destination. If you tie you spend 30 minutes in the Abyss, and if you lose you spend one hour in the Abyss. Finally, if your intended destination is within a 5-mile radius of your current location in the physical world, and if you are travelling alone, you may force yourself through the Abyss with reckless abandon taking 2 levels of aggravated damage that cannot be reduced or negated. Doing so causes you to arrive at your destination in one minute, without having to perform the normal Walk the Abyss test.

Before stepping into the Abyss using Walk the Abyss, spend one point of Blood to paint a sigil on yourself and each of your intended companions. Warding yourselves in such a way will reduce any damage you or your companions take from spending time in the Abyss by half rounded down. In addition, your warding increases the number of companions you can safely take with you to six instead of three.

Cast this ritual by spending one point of Blood to heat, cool, and reforge the shadow of a weapon that you possess by using a hammer made of silver. Thereafter, the weapon itself becomes considerably lighter and easier to wield. If the weapon has a quality that requires two hands to use, such as Brutal or Long Range, it no longer requires two hands to wield. If the weapon did not require two hands to use, it gains the Balanced quality. This does not count against the object's maximum number of qualities. Once completed, this ritual lasts for a year. Casting this ritual does not consume the silver hammer used to forge the shadow.

Begin this ritual by lighting a ring of candles in an otherwise dark room. Coat your hand in shadow, spend one point of Blood, and pinch each flame out to complete the preparation. For the rest of the night, whenever you spend a simple action to activate Shadow Play, you may use it to snuff out light sources within your line of sight, including those that are electronic. The light source may be no larger than a campfire. If these lights are entirely mundane, there is no challenge. If the light source is supernatural in nature, you must succeed in an opposed challenge using your Social attribute + Occult skill versus the test pool of the power the target used to create the effect. This ritual cannot be used to snuff out the glow caused by the third eye of a Salubri.

This ritual may only be used on willing targets. To cast it, you must conjure a tiny shadow by using Shadow Play. That tiny shadow then seeps into one of the ears of your target making her capable of hearing the strange noises in the dark in addition to your voice. Whenever your target is alone in a completely dark room and speaks your name, she may establish a brief two-way communication in which to relay information. During this time, you may hear her clearly and speak in a whisper back to her. You may break off communication as desired, or your target may end it by leaving the dark room or turning on the lights. The ritual lasts up to 30 days, though you may choose to end it at any point in time. You may have as many applications of this power active as you have dots in the Occult skill. Should you have a number of applications active as you have dots in the Occult skill and then attempt to activate the ritual on another target, the oldest instance of the ritual immediately ends.

Spend 10 minutes and a point of Blood as you smear ancient runes on the floor, causing the flora and fauna of the Abyss to grow throughout your haven. As a result, for one night your haven becomes a refuge for the Abyss, concealing it from anyone who is not an Abyss Mystic. Onlookers will simply disregard the building, similar to the effects of the Obfuscate discipline. This ritual will only function on non-unique buildings and locations. A building that is also a public space, such as a landmark or an Elysium, will not be affected. In addition, whenever you use Walk the Abyss you may choose to travel to the location where your Palace of Tenebrae is active and can travel to and arrive there in half the required time. You may only have a single active instance of this ritual active at a time.

To cast this ritual, you must obtain a pair of stolen shoes and spend a point of Blood as you symbolically place a drop on the inside of each. You must have stolen the shoes yourself within the past week; the ritual will fail if they were stolen by another. Obtaining the shoes through coercion or duress works equally as well as simple theft. Once cast, while wearing the shoes you may spend a simple action to click your heels together thereby spending the magic and causing you to immediately switch physical places with one of your visible Arms of the Abyss. You may not activate this ritual if you or the arm you seek to switch places with are Grappled. If activated while the arm you want to switch places with is Grappling another character, you will assume the Grapple upon changing places. Similarly, if you cause the switch while you are Grappling a target, the arm will assume the Grapple. You may not bring other characters with you when you make this switch. You may only have a single active casting of this ritual at a time; additional casting will invalidate the previous instance. Each pair of stolen shoes will only function a single time. Once you have expended the ritual, you must steal a new pair.

To cast this ritual, you must recite a prayer to an icon of a virtuous figure, then smash and discard it in a body of water as you spend one Blood point. For the remainder of the night, whenever you are in the presence of someone who commits a sin that requires them to willingly gain a Beast trait based on their morality (i.e., Humanity or their chosen path), this ritual transmutes their energies and fills you with sustenance. In the case of non-vampires, you may benefit when they commit an action which would incur a Beast trait in an ordinary vampire (one not on a Path; see **MET VTM, Chapter Seven: Dramatic Systems, page 300**). If this condition is met, you may choose to instantly regain up to 1 point of spent Blood and recover up to 1 point of spent Willpower. You may gain this benefit even if the Beast traits would be applied later, such as during combat. After you have regained 5 points of Blood and Willpower in this way, this ritual ends. You cannot gain more Blood or Willpower than that allowed by your maximum pool. Alternatively, whenever a vampire in your line of sight loses a point of their morality or a mortal in your line of sight commits an action that would cause an ordinary human to lose a point of Humanity, you may instantly gain 5 points of spent Blood and fully replenish your spent Willpower. If this occurs, the ritual immediately ends. Individuals must be acting of their own free will to trigger this power. They cannot be supernaturally coerced, though they may be coerced through threats or intimidation. Any instances must also be legitimate and deliberate acts of sin; your allies cannot kick a puppy or scandalize a nun to knowingly grant you power. The Storyteller shall be the final arbiter of what is acceptable.

This power requires you to spend one point of Blood as you sacrifice a small creature which has never seen the light, such as blind species of fish, salamander, or a creature that was raised in total darkness. For the remainder of the night, the Abyss grants you the power to use the total of your Obtenebration dots (including techniques and elder powers) in place of your Stealth skill. Using this ritual is a breach of the Masquerade as your body becomes incredibly pale and your eyes flash stark white when exposed to light. Because of this, you gain the Eerie Presence flaw for the duration of the ritual's effects. (See **MET VTM, Chapter Five: Merits and Flaws, page 262**.)

Cast this ritual from within the Abyss while you are standing completely still. Focus on a specific lost item, envisioning it clearly as you spend one point of Blood to form a replica from the nearby shadows. Although you do not have to be currently familiar with it, either you or someone with you must have had familiarity with it sometime in the past, and have been in direct possession of this object for at least 30 days sometime prior to the activation of this ritual and the item must still be lost. Once your shadow replica is formed, you must chant over the replica as your mind searches the Abyss to find the object. If it is determined that an item has been destroyed or is in another's possession, you cannot find the item. However, items which have been forgotten or lost to history can be recovered, such as an old painting sitting in an attic or an arrowhead from a centuries-old battle now buried beneath the dirt. In those cases where you cannot find the item, you may still find a similar item. For example, if your Masterwork sabre with Accurate and Deadly qualities was stolen rather than lost, you may instead recover a regular sabre with Accurate and Deadly qualities; the replacement will never be quite as good as the original. You may not arrange for the theft of an item in order to use this ritual to get a second version of it — the Abyss somehow senses such trickery causing the ritual to fail. Your Storyteller makes the ultimate decision as to whether an item is recoverable via this ritual, as well as the details of any replacement. Objects which have been lost to fires or at sea are often candidates for recovery; an object that at least one person knows of the object's location is not. Should the item or a similar item be deemed recoverable, you must complete a quest to retrieve it. The difficulty is based on the length of time the item has been lost, beginning at 1 and increasing by 1 level for every 20 years (to a maximum of 5), and the quest category is based on the type of item: - **Simple Quest:** Mundane item or keepsake (o to 1 item qualities). - **Complex Quest:** Unique or complex item (2 or more item qualities). - **Epic Quest:** Legendary items or magical artifacts, truly one-of-a-kind objects. When undertaking a quest to recover an object, you will not know what you will find until you reach the end of the quest. Therefore, most Abyss Mystics will research any possible locations for the item and, if working on behalf of others, get paid in advance.

In order to cast Adornment of Ashes, you must first burn a small quantity of black hardwood, such as ebony or African blackwood, to ash. Thereafter, you may spend 1 point of Blood to infuse the ash with supernatural power, and use the ash to draw a visible rune, openly displayed somewhere on your body. Lasombra familiar with Catholicism often choose the forehead for this sigil, displaying their strength to all who view them. After casting this ritual, and for the remainder of the night, whenever you use Shroud of Night and remain in its area of effect you cannot be targeted by powers that require Gaze and Focus, even if your opponents' attempt to use the Blind Fighting combat maneuver or employ supernaturally enhanced vision, such as that provided by Heightened Senses or Eyes of the Beast. You, however, can still target others with your own powers that require Gaze and Focus. If the ashen rune drawn is significantly marred, the effects of Adornment of Ashes immediately end. An opponent in combat may attempt to disrupt the rune by successfully using the Disarm combat maneuver to target it.

To enact this ritual, focus on your target while spending a point of Blood and burning a piece of paper with her name written on it, storing the embers in a container that does not allow light inside. Initiate an opposed challenge against your target. If you succeed, you create an object imbued with the power of Ensnared Mind. Later, you may open the container and scatter the embers to the winds by spending a simple action. If your target is within 1 mile, she becomes disoriented and fleetingly trapped within her darkest memories causing her to overlay her past with her present and making it difficult for her to determine which is which. For the next hour, your target is unable to determine friend versus foe and she cannot relent to the powers of others and others cannot relent to the power that she employs. In addition, if a power requires her to designate allies, she may not do. She may still benefit from the Assist Defender combat maneuver, but she cannot benefit from Assist Attacker, and is unable to use either Assist Attacker or Defender combat maneuvers herself. The embers will last for one night. You may only have a single active instance of this ritual at a time.

To cast this ritual, you must spend a point of Blood to ritually cut away a small portion of a large shadow and mold it like clay into a semblance of life. Once done, this Sentinel will disappear back into the darkness but remain ready to serve you should you require its protection. For the remainder of the night, you may spend a simple action to pull this Sentinel from any nearby shadow. Once summoned to action, the Gloom Sentinel can utilize the Assist Defender combat maneuver and carries traits equal to twice your dots of Obtenebration (including elder powers and techniques). In addition, the Gloom Sentinel has 3 health levels. The being will use the Assist Defender until its health levels expire. Once it loses its health levels, the sentinel perishes and cannot be summoned again. You may only use this ritual once per night.

By spending 15 minutes staring into a darkened reflective surface (such as a pool of water or a mirror) and coating the edge of the surface with a point of your Blood, you are able to cast one of your memories into the Abyss. The memory can be up to 15 minutes in length and is completely lost and may not be retrieved even with Telepathy. In exchange, the Abyss may give you a random memory which bears some meaning. Often these are memories that involve pain and suffering; the sort that people wish they could forget. The Storyteller will determine what memory, if any, you receive. Frequent use of this ritual may leave you with the Nightmares flaw (See **VTM page 264**). You may also use this ritual to attempt to uncover memories lost to the Abyss. The retrieval of your own lost memories requires a Complex quest into the Abyss while the memories of others require an Epic quest and Storyteller approval. This ritual only removes the memory; it does not remove any effects such as Diablerie, Soul Shards, Vinculums, or the implanted memories of others.

This ritual can be cast on a single room within your haven by spending one point of Blood to coat the walls with thick layers of shadow resulting in a chamber specifically attuned to the Abyss and devoid of all light. This Abyss insulated and comforting room allows you to recover up to 1 point of spent Willpower for every 5 minutes that you spend within it while meditating. In addition, whenever you use Walk the Abyss to travel to your Shadowy Sanctum, the journey takes only 10 minutes and causes no damage to the party. You may only have one Shadowy Sanctum in existence at any point in time; should you create a new one, the connection to the previous chamber fades.

Spend an hour in total darkness while flogging yourself enough to make your back bleed one point of Blood and causing 1 point of unsoakable normal damage. Afterwards, use this blood to write a question for the Abyss. The Abyss will use the remaining blood to write an answer to your question. The question you pose must be about a general subject as the Abyss does not possess the knowledge to reveal personal secrets or specific details about another player character. For example, you could ask "is there a True Brujah in Fresno County?", but you cannot ask "who is a True Brujah in Fresno County?' The Storyteller will determine the limits of the Abyss's knowledge, if any.

To cast this ritual, you must forcibly remove one of your own teeth and spend a point of Blood as you cast it into the Abyss as an offering. As the tooth is consumed, the power of the Abyss fills you with an Abyssal hunger for the life energies of others, as it bends and distorts your jaw into a horrific maw allowing you to bite without a Grapple; however, this fearsome transformation makes you a walking breach of the Masquerade. For the remainder of the night, whenever you would drink a point of Blood, the Abyss claims it as its own. This eliminates any possibility of a blood bond. If the blood consumed is vampire blood, the Abyss will heal you up to 1 point of normal damage. You may not end this ritual normally. Instead, spend a simple action to pull out one of your maw teeth while spending a point of Willpower to end its effects.

You may only perform this ritual on an incapacitated, restrained, or willing target. To cast it, you must prepare a set of silver instruments by ritually cleaning and polishing them before spending 1 point of your Blood to coat them. Once done, you may begin to cut away the target's shadow. At the will of the ritualist, this process can be painful to the target. Abyss Mystics who revel in cruelty will prolong this shadowy surgery or use dull instruments. At the ritual's conclusion, the target's shadow is detached and materializes in the form of a translucent fabric. As long as you have this item in your possession, you gain a +3 bonus to use any Dominate and Abyss Mysticism powers against your target. In addition, she cannot use or be affected by any power which requires her to have a shadow, such as Shadow Twin or Shadowy Betrayal. After a year-and-a-day have passed, the translucent shadow fabric unravels, and the victim grows a new normal shadow. A victim of this power may prematurely end this ritual and reattach her shadow by wrapping herself in her shadow as she goes to sleep.

To perform this ritual, you must cast a musical instrument into a flame produced from ethylene gas while reciting a story of the sun-god's folly. At its conclusion, you must spend 1 point of Blood as you or your target deeply inhale fumes to be seized by prophetic visions. You may use this ritual on yourself or on one other willing participant. However, you may only perform Cassandra's Folly once per month. For the remainder of the night, the beneficiary of this ritual gains the merit Oracular Ability, which does not count toward her limitations on merit points. If she already has this merit, she may use the merit's effects one additional time that evening. However, for the reminder of the night the beneficiary of this ritual is robbed of the ability to speak the truth. They cannot say or communicate anything truthful, whether willingly or through supernatural means; any attempt at the latter will only produce silence. This limitation includes all forms of communication including, but not limited to, sign language, pointing, writing, Telepathy, and texting.

Spending 1 point of Blood as you simultaneously submerge your entire body in water and shadow while you strangle a living creature in offering to the Abyss. The next time you summon your Arms of the Abyss, they appear huge and dense, like the arms of some ancient cryptid from the depths soaked in glistening, liquid shadow. Whenever your Arms of the Abyss use the Assist Attacker mass combat tactic, these arms grant a +3 bonus instead of the standard +1. An individual attacker may only be assisted by a single Arm of the Abyss at once.

To cast this ritual, you must spend 1 point of Blood and 20 minutes completely submerged in a body of saltwater (a tub will do) as you meditate upon the darkness within. When you emerge, your psychic aura is flooded with darkness that has the power to confound psychic phenomena. Until the end of the night, you do not leave a psychic impression that can be detected through Spirit's Touch or similar powers. In addition, any spirit that might reside in the object will be unable to recall or identify you, thwarting powers such as Wooden Tongues; however, objects brought to life by Animate the Unmoving will still be able to perceive and interact with you. In addition, your darkened aura offers you some defense against intrusive psychic powers. You receive a +3 wild card bonus against Auspex powers or similar mental powers that require psychic contact. You may still relent to Auspex powers targeted at you.

To cast this ritual, you must spend 1 point of Blood as you sever your own tongue which you replace with a tiny Arm of the Abyss. This change will be imperceptible to onlookers, but when using the Dominate discipline your words carry the maddening power of the void. Whenever you succeed in an opposed challenge using a Dominate power, you may choose to also inflict 1 point of unsoakable aggravated damage as madness and headaches assail your target. If this benefit is used with Forgetful Mind, it does not break the target's trance. If you achieved an exceptional success on the challenge, she takes 2 points of unsoakable aggravated damage instead of 1. Note that your target can avoid this damage by relenting to the challenge.

To cast this ritual, you must spend 1 point of Blood and journey to a dark and secret portion of the Abyss where you must present an offering to an ancient and unspeakable horror. This journey does not come without cost - you gain the Nightmares Flaw for the next 30 days. Once the ritual is complete, for the next 30 days, whenever someone initiates combat by attacking you, she is assailed by premonitions of foreboding madness and dread. She does not gain the benefit of a surprise action and instead must begin combat and attack normally on her initiative. In addition, for 30 days following the casting of this ritual, when you activate Black Metamorphosis or Tenebrous Form your appearance is a nightmarish amalgam of forgotten creatures, indescribable and madnessinducing. Whenever someone targets you with a power that requires your Gaze and Focus, resolve the power normally; however, once the challenge is resolved your attacker is struck blind as if she was affected by the Blinding Attack combat maneuver (**MET VTM, Chapter: Six, Core Systems, page 280**). This blindness grants her no escape as your horrifying image will remain seared in her mind. In addition, as long as she remains in your line-of-sight you gain and retain her Gaze and Focus even though she cannot see you.

This ritual allows you to summon, trap, and unleash an otherworldly entity, spreading chaos and division. While staring into a mirror, focus your emotions around one of the Urges listed below while repeating its name. Once you truly feel the manifestation of your desired emotion, shatter the mirror with your bare hand. As your blood mixes into the cracks of the mirror, spend 1 point of Blood to trap the Urge within yourself. You may only hold a single Urge at a time. Should you choose, you may hold it throughout the night but if unused the Urge dissipates at sunrise. While holding it trapped within yourself, you suffer from a mild derangement attached to your chosen Urge. Create an item card using the chart below as a representation of the effects of this ritual. At any time, you may choose to spend 1 point of Blood to release the Urge. The next time you successfully touch a character, pass the item card to their player as the Urge and the derangement passes to their character. You may pass the Urge through casual or incidental touch, such as a handshake, or it may require an opposed challenge if your target is clearly avoiding touch. Gloves or ordinary clothing do not stop the transfer (note: while a character can touch other characters without consent, do not touch other players without their permission). Once transferred, your target's player must take the item card and her character suffers the full effects of the derangement for the next 10 minutes, after which she gains 1 Derangement trait. After this time, the Urge (and the item card) must pass to the next person touched by the character of the card holding player. If she does not pass the Urge, she continues to gain 1 Derangement trait for every 5 minutes she retains it. When the Urge is passed to the next character, the prior character loses the Derangement caused by the Urge. When a player has the item card, her character is fully aware of when she can pass the Urge to another as it whispers encouragingly to her, wanting to spread. A character may only be the host of a single Urge at a time, and she cannot pass the Urge back to the same character who gave it to her. In these cases, the character hosting the Urge will understand that the transmission has failed. If you (the player of the ritualist) are handed the item card, your character is immune to its effects and may pass it along at any time. This cycle continues for the remainder of the night, at which point the Urge returns to Malfeas. At any point in the chain, someone may attempt to kill the Urge by spending 3 points of Willpower and immediately suffering a psychotic break. As the ritualist who unleashed it, you are immune to this effect. When selecting an Urge, you may choose from the Compulsion/Urge Table. ### Compulsion/Urge Table | COMPULSION / URGE | DERANGEMENT TRIGGER | RESPONSE | ROLEPLAYING AID | | ---------------------- | -------------------------------------------- | --------------------------------------------- | ----------------------------------------------------------- | | Greed (Kleptomania) | An unattended item that is not yours. | Steal the item | That is not mine. But it should be. I need to fix this. | | Violence (Destruction) | Any minor/perceived act of rudeness | Break the offending object or person | Was that an insult? Yes. You cannot stand for that! | | Despair | If someone familiar leaves your presence | Emotional Breakdown | Nothing is right, and nothing will ever be again. | | Apathy | Someone tries to involve you in conversation | Disengage and avoid | Everything is just dreadfully pointless What even matters? | | Paranoia | Any audible sound without a visual source | Get away from whoever is watching you | You may not know how, but you are definitely being followed | | Consumption (Hunger) | The scent of food, blood or flesh | Devour anything that could possibly be edible | You are starving; you could eat for days and not feel full | | Lies | Someone asks you a question | You may not communicate a full truth | They will use the truth against you. Bury it in lies. |

To prepare this ritual, soak a crystal that is at least 6 inches in diameter in shadow and a point of your Blood for at least a full day. When someone is unconscious or in torpor within your Shroud of Night, you may activate this ritual by using your simple and standard action to etch a sigil onto the glass of the crystal and touch her with it. The torpid body is instantly transported to an Abyssal realm within the crystal. Inside, the victim will remain unconscious and stable even if she is wounded; she will be unaware of the passage of time. Characters within an Oubliette cannot be contacted through Telepathy or similar powers. This crystal has only 2 health levels, and if it shatters the body within is instantly freed. You may choose to release the body voluntarily at any point in time, so long as the Oubliette is within a Shroud of Night. After 30 days, the victim's allies may attempt an Epic Quest (difficulty 3 or higher) to find the victim within the Abyss, so long as they have another Abyss Mystic or another individual capable of traversing the Abyss with them. As a person is not an object, What Once Was Lost may not be used to assist your search and the quest is entirely up to the overseeing Storyteller. You may have a number of crystals prepared up to your dots in Occult. Once used, a crystal may not be reused for another body; you must prepare a new one.

When a necromancer casts Call of the Hungry Dead, she must target a victim that is currently within a onemile radius of the casting of this ritual. If you succeed in an opposed challenge against your target, using the Necromancy test pool, the victim is plagued by the voices of wraiths from across the Shroud. These voices whisper in the night, teasing and confusing the character, distorting her perceptions, and increasing her paranoia. The next time the target gains downtime actions, she gains one less action for that period. This ritual's effects do not stack.

The necromancer must draw a circle in salt and silver on the floor. Having such a circle etched into the ground does not create a permanent spell; the components erode away at the next sunrise. All those within the Circle of Cerberus receive a +5 bonus to defensive test pools against wraiths or powers of Necromancy, including similar powers possessed by other supernatural creatures, as long as the protected characters remain within the circle.

The necromancer can perform this ritual on a severed hand or a clean human skull, animating the object to create an assistant. Such an assistant is permanent until destroyed. Animating a hand gives it the ability to act as a physical assistant, scrambling about on its fingers at the necromancer's command. It can fetch small items, turn the pages of a book, or perform simple tasks. Animating a human skull allows it to serve as a veritable library of information, reciting with perfect memory any book or information read to it and giving detailed accountings of any rituals or alchemical recipes that have been explained in its presence. Neither the head nor the hand can perform any combat actions. Dark Assistants have only 2 health levels and are animated by dark energies. These creatures have no memory of their former lives and serve only the necromancer who animated them.

At the zenith of this ritual's casting, you must destroy a portrait of the target that has been created by someone with at least 2 dots of the Crafts skill. The necromancer must target a victim who is currently within a one-mile radius of the initial casting of this ritual. Using the Necromancy test pool make an opposed challenge against your target. If you succeed, you have imbued a picture of your target with Eyes of the Grave. At some point later that same evening, you can tear the picture in half, causing your victim to suffer the effects of blindness for one full turn. A necromancer can have only one Eyes of the Grave ritual in effect at any time; casting this ritual a second time cancels the effects of the first invocation.

You must cast this ritual on an obsidian mirror no smaller than six inches in diameter; such an object can be concealed with a bit of effort, but will not fit easily into a pocket. Until the next sunrise, looking into the mirror allows the NECRO(and only the necromancer who cast this spell) to utilize Death's Gaze via the mirror's reflection. Death's Gaze grants the ability to see wraiths and the surrounding Shadowlands. It also allows the necromancer to see the stain of oblivion on the living. If the necromancer has any dots of the Medicine skill, she may determine from this stain whether or not the living individual has any illnesses, damage, or physical disabilities.

The necromancer invoking this ritual is able to change a true corpse's facial features, coloration, and general height and weight, causing the corpse's appearance to correspond with her own for up to three full nights. To enact this ritual, the caster removes the corpse's tongue and keeps it on her person for as long as she wants the ritual to be in effect. Clever necromancers also use this ritual to ensure that onlookers cannot identify the corpse's true identity easily, using it to mislead investigations. The corpse's native DNA does not change; it is possible that scientific tests could determine the individual's genetic makeup is incorrect for her physical features or age, but to casual investigation, the body appears in all ways to be a copy of the necromancer who casts this ritual.

To prepare this ritual, you must spend a point of Blood as you decorate a bone from a corpse by ritually adorning it with owl feathers, paper streamers, bits of shoe leather, and an eye. Any bone will suffice, though those with a flair for the dramatic prefer to use a skull. Once cast, when the item is held by a biological descendant of the corpse from which the bone was taken, it will glow a distinctive blue color; however, because the prepared bone is something of a ghastly sight, it may require some coercion on your part.

To perform this ritual, you must take a drop of your vitae and combine it with a drop of blood from the zombie you wish to enhance. The blood must first be boiled and then added to a mixture of lanolin, fennel, and ground Rose of Jericho. Once cooled, the substance is smeared on the face of the zombie. For the next 30 days, you may spend 1 point of Blood and a simple action to temporarily see through the eyes of your zombie. For three turns, you may see and hear where your minion is and what it is doing, as well as issue any additional commands as you wish. Further, if you possess them you may use the first 2 dots of Auspex through the zombie's senses. Afterward, your senses return to your body, but you may use this power again if desired. While connected with your zombie, you may not utilize any powers and you lose your ability to sense or react to anything happening around your body; however, you retain your normal test pools. Any zombie created by you may be enhanced in such a manner. You may have this ritual active on a number of zombies equal to your Occult skill. If you exceed this number, you must choose to end the earliest use.

This ritual requires you to obtain food or drink that was recently gifted to those grieving the loss of a loved one as a gesture of sympathy. The food must be sufficiently fresh that a normal mortal would find it edible, and you cannot prepare the food yourself – you must obtain it from a grieving mortal. Leftovers are fine in this case. Spend 1 point of Blood while ritually intoning an invitation for spirits of the dead to come and feast on the offered food. Any wraith capable of hearing your invitation may choose to heed your call; for this reason, many necromancers carefully select and prepare the site at which this ritual is cast. Once the ritual is cast, for the next hour the food's presence is duplicated in the Shadowlands and wraiths may interact with it, typically by eating and drinking it – relishing in sensory pleasures typically denied to the dead. In the material realm, the ritual food wastes away as the wraiths consume its nourishing qualities in the form of spiritual energy. If the target food is moved more than six steps from the location at which the ritual was cast, the ritual fails, and its effects immediately end. From the participating ghosts, you may target a number of wraiths equal to your dots in the Occult skill. Each wraith that spends at least five minutes consuming the ritually empowered food regains a number of points of Pathos equal to twice the number of dots you possess in the Occult skill. The regained Pathos cannot exceed the maximum amount of Pathos the wraith can hold in its Pathos pool. For example, if the necromancer has an Occult skill of 4, each of the selected participating wraiths can regain up to 8 points of Pathos. A participating wraith that already had 3 points of Pathos in its pool can regain 7 points of Pathos from this ritual, up to its maximum Pathos pool of 10.

You must spend an evening blessing the Stock Location and ensuring that the ghosts consider it their new residence. Increase the difficulty of any quest against this location by +3. If this would take the difficulty above 5, subtract 5 from the total rating and the Quest becomes the next highest difficulty level. This ritual lasts a year-and-a-day.

Spend one point of Blood and 5 minutes in devout prayer as you scatter a handful of pomegranate seeds in offering to Persephone. At this ritual's conclusion, you gain knowledge of any dead bodies buried or interred within a 100 yard area and a general sense of the value of whatever they are buried with. This ritual does not detect any undead bodies within the earth, such as vampires using Earth Meld.

Once per night, you may use this ritual to call upon a network of wraiths while focusing on a location you have familiarity with. From this network, you are able to learn the best path to that location, unimpeded by obstacles. This functions as a single use of a Safe NECRO(Underworld Level 1) Influence action and grants you safe passage on your desired route. Unless cancelled, the effect lasts until sunrise.

To perform this ritual, you must stir a lock of hair from a newborn child and 1 point of her Blood in a cauldron made of pewter. To complete the ritual, you drop a ball of wool yarn into the vat, binding the thread to you. Upon entering the Shadowlands, you may unwind the ball of yarn and attach the end to her right wrist. This tether grounds you, allowing you to traverse the Shadowlands with some measure of reliability. You may use the ball of yarn to return to your original location, even if you should find yourself in the Labyrinth. Once you have tethered yourself to the Shadowlands, you may utilize your Silver Thread to assist with a quest. Use of a Silver Thread allows you to lower the difficulty rating of any quest within the Shadowlands by one level, to a minimum of one. This cannot be used to downgrade the type of quest a level and, as such, 1 Heroic Quest would not be affected by the Silver Thread. Once you have bound yourself to a quest, you are fully invested in the outcome. However, binding yourself to a quest can be dangerous and any quest bolstered by a Silver Thread that fails results in one additional consequence for the necromancer. Once a Silver Thread has been created, it remains active until the quest is fulfilled. A necromancer may only create one Silver Thread at a time.

To create the Sip of Death, you must spend 5 minutes cooking your concoction in a cast-iron pot over an open flame. You may create up to 5 draughts in each batch; however, you must include 1 point of Blood for each serving. Once imbibed, the drinker gains one free retest to be used in any test against a wraith or specter. A vampire may only benefit from one use of Sip of Death per night. The potion's magic fades at sunrise if unused; unconsumed potions lose their potency at the end of the night. The blood used in the draught creation process is rendered inert by this ritual. As such, by ingesting a draught the imbiber does not gain a blood trait or suffer from any mundane or supernatural effects or taints of the blood used nor will they be at risk of the blood bond.

If this ritual is performed on the necromancer herself, this ritual transmutes 3 points of Blood within the caster's system. The caster cannot utilize this blood for any purpose. Should anyone attempt to drink from the caster, she drinks these 3 points of Black Blood before consuming any of the user's other Blood points. If the ritual is cast upon a recently dead true corpse or another amount of cold blood (such as a blood bag or other blood-storage container), all Blood within that corpse or container is transmuted to Black Blood. Those who ingest Black Blood take 2 points of normal damage per point of Black Blood they drink. Further, for the next hour, an individual who has ingested any amount of Black Blood suffers terrible cramping pain, and receives a -1 penalty to all Physical attribute tests.

This ritual bears some similarities to Call of the Hungry Dead, in that it makes the sounds of the Underworld audible in the physical realm. However, Din of the Damned affects an area or enclosed chamber, rather than a single individual. To ward an area in this manner, the necromancer must draw an unbroken line around its perimeter with a stick of chalk made from crematorium ash. Until dawn, any attempt to eavesdrop on events inside the room, be it mundane, technologically enhanced or supernatural, receives garbled, static-ridden results. Further, a light wind in the area carries whispers, warnings, curses, screams, and laughter of the dead. All mortals within the area must leave, and they refuse to enter the area again for the rest of the night. Mortals who are forced to remain suffer a -5 penalty to all test pools.

Once a necromancer has cast this ritual, she is able to sense nearby breaches of the Shroud, including uses of Shroud Mastery until the next sunrise. This ability manifests as a creeping chill up the necromancer's arms, guiding the general direction to the breach. Once within sight, the breach appears to be an otherworldly tear, flickering with pale, heatless lightning. Sepulchral Beacon reveals the location of a death (a spirit passing through the Shroud) and the use Necromancy or similar powers, as well as any other effect that may have disturbed the barrier between the living world and the Shadowlands. This power has a range of one mile.

The necromancer must target a victim who is currently within a one-mile radius of the initial casting of this ritual. Further, she must have either a lock of her victim's hair, a pinch of flesh (or ash, in the case of a vampire) that was once part of the victim's body, or a point of the victim's Blood. Using the Necromancy test pool make an opposed challenge against your target. If you succeed, you afflict your target with Stained Sight. For the duration, the victim sees the world around her as decaying, rotting, and dying. Those affected by this ritual are often repulsed by their surroundings, fearful even of allies, and can become depressed by the images of constant death. The victim gains the flaw Death Sight for a period of one month or two game sessions, whichever is longer.

This ritual allows a necromancer to gain a sense of a wraith's power. By casting it, the necromancer learns any powers a wraith possesses, as well as its general power level, reason for death, and how much time has passed since its death. To cast this ritual, the necromancer needs only to have some physical evidence of a wraith's existence: a fetter, part of a corpse, or an item that has been touched by the wraith in question or affected by that wraith's powers.

To create a Charon's Obol, you must journey into the Shadowlands using Ex Nihilo and submerge a bronze or copper coin into the fetid and murky waters that exist there while adding 1 point of Blood to the water. Once completed, you can return to the land of the living and gift these coins to your allies. An ally who possesses a Charon's Obol can willingly accompany you when you use the power of Ex Nihilo. This is an exception to the rule that prevents the user of Ex Nihilo from bringing others to the Shadowlands. Once in the Shadowlands, those gifted with a coin need not follow you, but can follow any necromancer wishing to lead the journey across the Shroud. To do so the recipient must simply place the small coin in her mouth and follow her guide. If at any time the coin is broken, destroyed, or spit out, the recipient is immediately ejected from the Shadowlands at a location determined by the Storyteller. This shared usage of Ex Nihilo does convey the ability for allies to participate in the focus effect version of Ex Nihilo. A necromancer may have a number of Charon's Obols equal to her Occult skill at a given time. Crafting a new one in excess of this limit destroys the first one created.

To cast this ritual, you must spend a point of Blood and publicly recite a prayer or invoke a blessing at an event dedicated to the dead. The gathering can be as large as a village festival or as small as a family meal. Over the next 7 days, those present when the blessing was given will feel a stir of faith as to the presence of their ancestor in the afterlife resulting in a bout of good luck. This takes the form of the affected character being able to reduce an exceptional success in a challenge they lost to a regular success. When this happens, the participant will feel that things could have gone much worse, wondering if perhaps they were saved by one of the departed watching over for her. A character may have no more than a single instance of this ritual active at a given time.

This ritual attracts and binds a number of ghostly servitors to your haven or a location you control, granting it the Guards and the Staff qualities. If the location already possesses the Guard quality these ghostly servitors are in addition to the five levels of corporeal guardians. If the location already possesses the Staff quality, this ritual grants an additional set of workers to provide for you and your guests. To enact this ritual, you must create a shrine to St. Zita within your house, which you must bless with 1 point of your Blood and then maintain by presenting an offering of fresh homemade bread every two weeks. After the initial casting, over the next seven days your servants will appear; this happens even if the location has the Occult quality. These servants are nonspecific stock 1 NPC wraiths who will obey you or anyone you designate, manifesting if necessary to carry out your instructions. For as long as you maintain this ritual, you may fire or destroy wraith servants that displease you, and others will take their place within a week. Revealing the nature of your servants to humans has the potential to break the Masquerade. You may only have a single active instance of this ritual at a time.

You must first locate a coin that was minted in the same year as the death of the departed you wish to protect. You must anoint that coin with 1 point of your Blood and then wrap the coin in a small amount of cloth and bury it in the dirt above your interred target. If the corpse is entombed above ground, the coin can be placed within the coffin or urn. While this coin remains hidden in the soil, coffin, or urn, if the resting place of your deceased target is disturbed or if the wraith of the person buried there is attacked or targeted by Necromancy, you receive an immediate psychic notification as the voice of the dead calls for help. These coins retain their enchantment for 1 year, after which they must be replaced. In addition, if the body is raised or commanded by Necromancy or similar powers, the corpse becomes immune to control and enters a rage, attacking the necromancer attempting to control it. Treat this zombie as a 4-point Stock NPC with the Athletics, Brawl, Dodge, and Potence specializations. Once triggered the zombie will remain active for 10 minutes. You may use this ritual to protect a number of graves up to your dots in the Occult skill.

To cast Epitaph, you must collect small shavings or scrapings from a memorial marker that contains text describing a skill such as "brave soldier," "loving spouse," or "generous benefactor." The memorial marker – a tombstone, urn, plaque, etc. – need not be the specific one used during a wraith's funeral rites. Many necromancers will craft replica markers for such a purpose, and honorarium plaques from parks and museums are equally suitable so long as the marker includes the target wraith's name. Spend 1 point of Blood and sprinkle a pinch of the detritus over the target wraith while reciting the epitaph found on the marker from which the detritus was collected. The ritual caster then chooses a specific skill specialization for the target wraith, empowering the ghost. For a year-and-a-day the target wraith gains an additional skill specialization related to the one described on the memorial marker. For example, a wraith reminded of their qualities as a "brave soldier" may gain the Melee skill specialization while empowered by Honored Epitaph. Alternatively, a "loving spouse" may receive the Empathy skill specialization. This additional skill specialization can exceed the wraith's typical maximum number of skill specializations. Epitaph cannot be used to grant wraiths additional disciplines or skill specializations in Lore or Linguistics. A wraith may only be affected by one use of Honored Epitaph at a time; if another necromancer targets the wraith with Honored Epitaph, the effects of the earlier ritual casting immediately ends.

For this ritual to work, you must have access to a corpse that has key portions of its anatomy preserved. You must remove one (or all) of the following items from the corpse that must be mostly intact: its eyes, tongue, or fingers. This requires at least one dot of the Medicine skill. You may then spend 1 point of Blood to swap the severed part with your own corresponding part. Doing this causes 1 point of unsoakable aggravated damage per item, but the replacement parts will function normally. - **Eyes:** You can successfully impersonate the target at any retinal scan. - **Tongue:** You may successfully impersonate the target's voice, avoiding any electronic detection. - **Fingers:** You can successfully replicate the target's fingerprints for the purposes of electronic detection. In addition to these effects, attaching at least one of these body parts imparts a semblance of memory consisting of the deceased's passwords and the location of their data and accounts. You may choose to retain the stolen body parts, but they will continue to decay over time, granting you a truly horrific appearance.

To perform this ritual, you must collect a piece of art that depicts a weeping woman. While older ritualists commonly use religious iconography, more modern artistic depictions may be used as well. The art must be wrapped in silk that has been soaked in 1 point of your blood and placed outside during a new moon as this ritual is a cast. Thereafter, the art may be placed in any building. Should any death occur within the building, you are struck with a brief yet violent pain as your mind is wracked with the echoing wails of the banshee, rendering you unable to hear for a turn. You may sever your link to the icon at any time by burning the silk the art was wrapped in. This immediately ends the ritual and destroys the icon. The piece of art will retain its potency for 90 days unless it is brushed with your blood. Doing so renews the item for another 90 days. A necromancer may have a number of these objects equal to her Occult skill at a given time.

A necromancer under the effect of this ritual can willfully cause decay to any inanimate objects she touches. For the rest of the night, she can spend a standard action to corrode and blight anything she is touching with her flesh, rendering the item immediately useless. In combat, you can destroy an object under your opponent's control by targeting that opponent with the Grapple combat maneuver. If you succeed, you can instead destroy the object in your target's possession. Moldering Presence works immediately on items up to the size of a large book. Larger items may take a few turns or a few minutes to destroy using this power, at the Storyteller's discretion.

To enact this ritual, the caster must slay three large hounds, affixing two additional heads to a single hound's corpse before burying it beneath the floor of her haven. Then, she must chant over the grave for three consecutive nights. On the fourth night, the hound rises again as a wraith: a ghostly presence in the physical world, but entirely solid within the Shadowlands. The Cerberus Hound is a 4-point Stock NPC and counts as a wraith for the purpose of targeting powers. It can see through Obfuscate and other such powers of invisibility, counts as an animal, and has the additional ability to utilize Dread Gaze. The Cerberus Hound cannot leave the caster's haven for any reason. It has animal intelligence and is unfailingly loyal to its creator. The Hound has 10 points of Pathos. It also possesses focuses in Potence, Fortitude, Investigation, and Brawl. You cannot have more than one Cerberus Hound in existence at a given time. Should you create another, the first one immediately dies.

The necromancer must have a human skull upon which to cast this ritual. Once cast, the skull is covered with arcane sigils and runes and glows with a soft, eerie green light, both in the physical world and in the Shadowlands. When the skull is created, the necromancer decides if the skull has a positive or a negative charge. - A positively charged Spirit Beacon acts as a lure for wraiths. All wraiths within a one-mile radius are summoned to the skull's location, or they follow the skull, if it is moving. To stay away from the skull, a wraith must spend 1 Pathos every 10 minutes to ignore the Spirit Beacon's call. - A negatively charged Spirit Beacon acts as a repellent for wraiths. All wraiths in the area are compelled to leave the area and stay at least one mile away from the Spirit Beacon. A wraith must spend 1 Pathos every 10 minutes to be within one mile of the Spirit Beacon. The skull loses all enchantment at the next sunrise, though it may be enchanted again.

A necromancer performs this ritual on a Retainer, requiring the Retainer to sign her name on a contract in her own blood. Thereafter, if that Retainer is killed, it automatically rises a short time after death to serve the necromancer as a zombie. The zombie is more intelligent than most of its kind. It remembers the last order it was given by the necromancer and continues to fulfill that command to the best of its ability. Once that task is accomplished, the Retainer once again falls into death, and the zombie becomes ash.

To enact Bathory's Blessing, you must gather a number of the nearly or recently dead mortal bodies equal to your dots in Generation and bleed all their blood into a large tub. You must then add 1 point of your Blood to the tub and submerge yourself in the mixture. Your body must remain in the pool of blood throughout the casting. Once complete, you emerge with flawless skin and an invigorated feeling. You may choose an additional Social focus which you gain for the evening. Killing victims for the sake of this ritual unavoidably results in the gain of 4 Beast traits, even if you did not directly take part in the killing.

To perform this ritual, you must destroy representations of the wraith's remaining fetters. Once the representation of the final fetter is destroyed, you must spill 1 point of Blood on the ground, causing the wraith to manifest. You must then immediately begin to siphon the angst from the wraith. Each wraith has an angst level equal to its Stock NPC Level. For each point of angst drained this way, you gain one Beast trait as the wraith approaches Transcendence, a higher state where her mortal issues are resolved and the soul journeys onward. Multiple necromancers may work together to drain the wraith's angst if each knows this ritual. If you are unable to drain all levels of angst from the wraith in one session, the wraith will return to the Shadowlands where her angst will be replenished. When a wraith has no angst remaining, she transcends.

Obtain a personal object from your target and burn it. Then, mix the ashes of the item with 1 point of Blood and smear the mixture over an effigy of your target. By succeeding in an opposed challenge, you can give your target the Prey Exclusion flaw (see **MET VTM, Chapter: Five, Merits and Flaws, page 265**), prohibiting her from feeding on a type of mortal of your choice. If the target already has the Prey Exclusion flaw, these effects temporarily replace it. While this ritual is active, the target gains no nourishment from the specific restriction. You must declare to the Storyteller what the restriction is as the target character is not immediately aware and may be required to spend a feeding downtime to discover it. A character can only be the target of a single instance of this ritual at a given time and if your target is already affected by Greater Exploitation of Weakness or the Ventrue clan weakness, this ritual's effects do not apply. This ritual lasts 30 nights after it is cast.

This ritual allows you to summon a Usurer; a special type of wraith with the unique power to provide notice to someone in your debt that their payment is due. To cast this ritual, you require a contract, IOU, or some token or marker exchanged as part of the agreement. This object must originate directly from the debtor; a Harpy's record will not suffice. By covering the item in 1 point of Blood, the Usurer will appear and inspect the marker. If the debt is legitimately owed, the wraith will approve and deliver a message of your making to the debtor. This message is typically a reminder of the debt, the payment owed, and how to arrange payment. The wraith will then disappear and pursue the debtor, wherever she may be, living or dead. As part of the ritual's magic, the wraith cannot be followed or affected by powers. The amount of time it takes for the wraith to find the debtor is up to the Storyteller, but it will never take more than 7 days. The wraith will always find the debtor due to the ritual's magic and the connection generated by the marker. The wraith is not fooled by the Alternate Identity background or supernatural means of deception or concealment. Once found, the next time the debtor sleeps the wraith will enter her dream and deliver your message in a terrifying fashion. The debtor will begin her next game session missing 3 points of her Blood (or Gnosis or Glamour, as is appropriate) and 1 point of Willpower. The Usurer collects this as interest on the debt, though she will not take any Blood (or Gnosis or Glamour) if the debtor has 3 or fewer points remaining. If the debtor is a mortal, the mortal will not lose blood, but instead will receive no rest from that night. After the notice is delivered to the debtor, or if the debtor is dead or in torpor, the wraith disappears. It cannot be found or summoned again, nor compelled to give information on the debtor (including her location or true identity). For a debt to be considered legitimate, it must meet all of the basic terms that a court of law would require; agreement between parties, an exchange of something of value, and no duress. In addition, the marker cannot have been given fraudulently (such as by someone impersonating the debtor). This ritual will function on debts that have been traded or acquired, provided such terms were not explicitly forbidden. It must also be somewhat significant; at least a minor boon or a non-trivial amount of money. This sort of collection method is viewed as scandalous by some, but most would view someone who defaults on a debt to a necromancer as foolish. Unfortunately, the nature of boons does not indemnify the debtor from such extreme means. No individual may be affected by this power more than once a month. The ritual will simply fail if your target has already been affected by it. Subsequent uses of this ritual will summon a different spirit. The wraith that is summoned is brought forth by specific magical means. It cannot be compelled, coerced, affected by Necromancy, or summoned again. Any attempt to do so violates the ritual's magic, and the wraith will immediately disappear, unable to be affected.

While in the Shadowlands, you must combine 1 point of your Blood with the ashes of white heather, gladiola, and churchyard dirt in a copper bowl, and then paint the exterior of a door with the mixture. As you do, the Shadowlands surrounding you ripple and shift, mutating and changing. This continues for 15 minutes at which time she can open a door directly into a Stygian Fortress; a structure that exists in the Shadowlands. Although each Stygian Fortress differs aesthetically, they are nearly mechanically identical. Each Stygian Fortress is a Prestige Stock Location with a rating of 5. The qualities of the location are: Dead Zone, Haunt, Isolated, Location, Off the Grid, and one additional quality of the necromancer's choice. See **MET VTM Volume 2 Issue 1, Chapter: Five, Core Rules & Dramatic Systems, page 117**. A necromancer may only have one Stygian Fortress in existence at any given time. The door to the Stygian Fortress can only be opened by the necromancer who cast this ritual, though others may attempt to gain access to the fortress through a difficulty 5 Complex Quest into the Shadowlands. Should anyone exit the fortress, rather than exiting to the Shadowlands, they will return to the last location this ritual was cast. The door and the fortress will retain its potency for 30 days, though the ritual may be refreshed once per month by expending a downtime action. If the ritual lapses, you may cast it again to gain access to the same fortress with all its previous belongings. Others may attempt to find a lapsed Stygian Fortress as described above.

To cast this ritual, you must first unearth a body that was buried within the past lunar cycle. Nine white oak tree seeds and 1 point of your Blood must be forced into the throat of the body, which is then buried in the light of a full moon at its apex. The tree grows with supernatural rapidity, and on the next full moon, it has matured into what seems to be a twisted sapling. You may cut a number of stakes from the roots of the tree equal to your Morality rating. Rather than suffering a -3 penalty when attempting to stake another, wielding a stake made from the roots only imposes a -1 penalty to your attack pool. All other conditions must be met in order to successfully stake another vampire. Once the stake has been cut and infused with power, anyone can use it. Any stakes enhanced by this ritual must be used within one month, or the power within them fades. Once this stake pierces a heart, it reverts to a normal stake.

To create a Bastone Diabolico, the necromancer must acquire a clean, rune-carved thighbone from a human subject, enchanting that bone in dark rituals. Thereafter, the necromancer has a permanent weapon, which can be used against enemies in the physical world or within the Shadowlands. The Bastone Diabolico deals 1 normal damage. This weapon is an improvised weapon, possessing the Fast quality. For more information on weapons, see **Chapter Thirteen: Influences and Equipment, page 515**. In addition, each successful blow against a vampire removes 1 point of that vampire's Blood, and a successful blow against a wraith removes 1 point of that wraith's Pathos. Unfortunately for the necromancer, ghosts can sense a Bastone Diabolico. They tend to stay away from individuals carrying one, causing such a character to have a -1 penalty to all test pools to summon or control wraiths. A necromancer can have only one Bastone Diabolico in existence at any time. Creating a new one causes the old one to disintegrate.

The necromancer who casts this ritual gains the ability to, once during the course of a night, spend 1 Blood, use her standard action, and flick her fingers at a target in the physical world or within the Shadowlands. The caster must make an opposed challenge using her Physical attribute + Athletics versus the target's Physical attribute + Dodge. If she succeeds, her target loses all memory and is rendered amnesic for 10 minutes. While under the effects of Lethe's Waters, the victim views the necromancer as a friend. The victim won't necessarily follow the necromancer's orders, but she is favorably disposed. Once this power wears off, the victim remembers everything that transpired while she was amnesic. If the body or spirit of an individual affected by this power is attacked, put in danger, or targeted by an offensive power, including Haunting, the effects immediately end.

To perform this ritual, the necromancer removes a mortal's top layer of skin with an obsidian dagger, taking care to damage the skin as little as possible in the process. The victim must survive the process. The necromancer then dons the skin of her victim, which forms a second layer over her own. Naturally, the victim needs to be of similar stature — otherwise, the features become distorted and the disguise becomes useless. Under normal scrutiny, the ruse is flawless. However, it imparts none of the victim's knowledge and mannerisms, and does nothing to mask the vampire's undead nature, if she is on a path. Conducting this ritual causes a necromancer to automatically gain 3 Beast traits.

When this ritual is cast on a necromancer's zombie, that zombie becomes more intelligent, stronger, and more durable. The zombie gains two skill focuses of your choice, and its health levels double. The effects of this ritual last for one month.

To prepare this ritual, you must first create an effigy of a target. You must either have familiarity with the target or a personal object of hers and have a piece of you target (i.e., hair, nail clippings, blood, etc.). The doll can be made of any material but must include a piece of the target worked into its construction. This preparation may be stored for up to a maximum of 30 days, but the target must still be familiar to you at the time of use. To cast the ritual, place the doll next to a candle and light it while visualizing the target. As the candle begins to melt, pour the hot wax onto the doll and let it harden. To complete the ritual, while still visualizing your target, break the doll into at least two pieces, pour 1 point of your Blood over the pieces, and make an opposed challenge against your target. If you succeed in an opposed challenge, the target gains the Fragile Bones flaw. The effect lasts for the next hour, unless the effigy used to cast the ritual is destroyed first. Each doll may only be used once; to use this ritual a second time on the same person, a new effigy must be created. Multiple uses of this ritual on the same target do not stack, but a second successful application extends the time of the flaw.

Use this ritual to permanently bind a wraith to a zombie by using 1 point of your Blood to carve mystic sigils into the undead flesh as your wraith is possessing it. Any willing wraith may be bound in such a way; should you try to bind an unwilling soul or one controlled by another necromancer, you must first make an opposed challenge using your Necromancy test pool to attempt to gain control of the wraith. Once bound, the resulting creature gains the Physical abilities of the zombie with the Mental and Social powers of the wraith, powered by its Pathos. The wraith is not considered to be in possession but is in full control of the body. Powers that are effective against either zombies or wraiths, such as the Sepulchre Path, will be able to affect this creature. These creatures' function as Stock NPC Retainers, using the lower stock level of the wraith or the zombie for the new entity. You may create any number of these creatures up to your levels of Occult skill; should you go above this number, the first soul you bound is forced free of its body, wherever it may be. This ritual lasts for 30 days, or until the zombie is destroyed.

To enact this ritual, you must obtain an item belonging to your intended victim. This item must be of some significance to the victim a picture of a deceased loved one, a well-loved stuffed animal from childhood, or a family relic carried from her homeland. Alternately, you may utilize a point of the intended victim's vitae. The item or vitae must be burned on a bonfire made of weeping willow branches, yew tree, and morning glory petals that have been soaked in 1 point of your Blood. Upon completion of the ritual, initiate an opposed challenge with your target, who must be within 10 miles of your location. A human affected by the Broken Heart is cursed. Within 48 hours, any naturally occurring event or interaction that causes the victim excessive excitement, sorrow, or joy, will also trigger her immediate death. Although a victim may be revived if medical services are swift, she will be trapped in a coma and will only regain consciousness if she ingests 1 trait of vitae. Only supernatural investigation will offer evidence of the suspicious circumstances surrounding the death. If the target is a supernatural creature or awakened mortal, she finds herself filled with sorrow and longing for things lost, and immediately loses all Social focuses until the following sunrise. Any attempt to gain a Social focus fails immediately unless the victim spends 1 point of Willpower to temporarily ignore the effects of the curse. Although the vampire cannot identify who attacked her, she knows without a doubt that someone or something has supernaturally affected her.

This ritual prepares a living animal to serve as a vessel for a wraith. You may force a retainer of yours to possess it, or may use a nearby Stock NPC wraith. The now-possessed animal is controlled by the wraith, who retains its human intelligence and is bound in this form for a year-and-a-day or until the animal's body is destroyed. The wraith possesses the full faculties of the animal and may use its own powers as well. For the purpose of determining test pools, the Fell Familiar uses the higher stock rating of the two, though it may use specializations from either. It may be affected by both Animalism and Necromancy, and by similar powers that affect animals and wraiths. Most wraiths are loathed to possess animals, considering the practice demoralizing. They are known to lash out, which is why such animals are typically considered poor-tempered. They have few qualms about attacking humans or putting the lives of their hosts at risk for should the animal die, the wraith will be freed from captivity. If you choose, you may assign a task to the wraith which will end the ritual's effects should the wraith complete the task. You may have only a single active instance of this ritual at a time. If you cast it again, your previous wraith is released.

To create a Hand of Glory, you must prepare the item in the traditional manner. First, a severed hand of a condemned murderer is wrapped in a linen funeral shroud, before being placed in an earthenware jar with spices. After a fortnight, the hand must be removed from the jar and smeared with a mixture consisting of 1 point of your Blood, fern, and vervain, before being dried in a wood-burning oven. Once a Hand of Glory has been created, it requires a monthly sacrifice of 1 point of Blood to preserve its magic. Anyone may activate a Hand of Glory once it has been crafted. To activate the Hand of Glory, the vampire must place a candle in the fist of the mummified hand and light it. Once the candle has been lit, all mortals within a building no larger than a 3-story residence or medium-sized office building fall into a deep sleep and cannot be roused. Occupants who are supernatural in any way, including ghouls, kinfolk or fae-touched, are not affected by the Hand of Glory. This effect lasts for one hour, unless the candle is extinguished prior. You may use a Hand of Glory five times before it ceases to function.

A necromancer using Chill of Oblivion converts aggravated damage from fire and high temperatures to normal damage. She can also put out an open flame by spending a point of Blood to extinguish a single source, no larger than a bonfire, within one step of her position. While under the effects of Chill of Oblivion, the character's aura is laced with writhing black lines, which appear to be the result of diablerie. She also draws in heat from her immediate environment, giving her the flaw Eerie Presence. Finally, the taint of the Underworld makes her an easy target for malevolent wraiths or other users of Necromancy. All wraiths, and all uses of Necromancy, receive a +3 bonus to their test pools when targeting an individual affected by this ritual. This ritual lasts until the next sunrise.

The necromancer must target a victim who is currently within a one-mile radius of the casting of this ritual. Further, she must have either a lock of her victim's hair, a pinch of flesh (or ash, in the case of a vampire) that was once part of the victim's body, or a point of the victim's Blood. Using the Necromancy test pool make an opposed challenge against your target. If you succeed, then you can name one limited, non-combat activity, such as "painting," "speaking to Prince Elliot," or "attending a Toreador clan meeting." Until the next sunset, the target associates that activity with death. She is convinced that if she participates in that activity, she will die — and she is not entirely incorrect. If the individual willingly undertakes that activity, she takes 3 points of aggravated damage, which cannot be reduced or negated. No power can remove – or cause the target to forget – the ingrained fear of Weight of the Tomb, and asking an individual affected by this power to perform the activity (through Dominate or other such powers) is considered to be directly self-destructive. You can only cast Weight of the Tomb once within a lunar cycle, once per month, and no target can be affected by more than one Weight of the Tomb at a time. If a second application targets a character before the first fades, the new application removes the old.

This powerful ritual requires at least 2 but no more than 6 participants, though only one must possess the ritual. Participants must either have Necromancy or 3 dots of the Occult skill (Stock NPCs cannot meet this requirement). This ritual must be performed on consecrated ground. Each participant must donate 1 point of Blood into an ornate silver box. The lead ritualist must then add crushed nightshade berries and 1 point of her own Blood. The box is then sealed and set on a pedestal surrounded by white irises. In the Shadowlands surrounding the area, all wraiths immediately become agitated and instantly aware that something is not right. They gain a +1 wild card bonus to any challenges when manifested. The effects of this ritual impact an area the size of one mile per level of Necromancy possessed by each ritual participant. Until the following sunrise, no natural deaths can occur within this area. Instead, each soul that should have died is immediately marked and chained to the location to ensure the creation of a wraith upon their eventual death. At some point before sunrise, the necromancer must open the box, triggering the delayed death of the victims and releasing powerful necrotic energies. The ritual participants must spend 10 Willpower points between them to mitigate the powerful energies that spring forth. This Willpower cannot be regained for 30 days or the next game session, whichever is longer. If the Willpower is not spent or if the box is not opened at sunrise, death lashes out and renders all participants torpid. Each person within this area who should have died immediately knows that their very existence is unnatural. Often these victims are left in excruciating pain, begging for a death that is not forthcoming despite obviously fatal wounds. This phenomenon persists until the following sunrise, when every victim screams out at the same time before dying. Needless to say, this ritual is a profound breach of the Masquerade. Wraiths created in this fashion are often volatile and unstable, adding further chaos to the event. This ritual is rarely used in modern days in order to protect the Masquerade. However, it remains an extremely powerful tool for terrorizing Camarilla members who refuse reasonable discourse.

This ritual is similar to Exploitation of Weakness, except you can remove all feeding options, save one. You must possess the specific blood type of the new feeding restriction, which may require downtime actions to obtain, but may choose the defining characteristic from the qualities possessed by the donor. When the ritual is enacted, you must spend 1 point of Blood and engage in an opposed challenge against your target. If successful, the target immediately is aware of the new feeding restriction as they develop a mild craving for the new blood type. The Storyteller has the final say on the appropriateness and availability of the feeding restriction (for example "red head people who have been to the moon" would not be appropriate). The characteristics of the blood requirement cannot include disease, blood alcohol content, or drugs. This ritual will override the Ventrue clan weakness and the Prey Exclusion flaw. If the target attempts to feed from anything except what the necromancer declares, the blood immediately turns to ash in her mouth. A target may not be affected by both the lesser and greater versions of this ritual. This ritual lasts for 30 days.

This ritual lets you summon a special type of wraith called a Harbinger who will take a prepared message to a dead individual. This must be a handwritten note prepared on 3 or few sheets of paper using ink mixed with 1 point of your Blood. When the ritual is cast, the wraith will appear and review the message and the information concerning the intended recipient to determine if it meets its approval. If it does, the wraith must then be paid to carry out its services. If the recipient lived a truly virtuous life the fee could be as low as a few common coins, while less virtuous souls require greater payment such as gold or other precious materials or stones. The typical vampire requires the equivalent of an expenditure of Resources x3 or greater. The Harbinger may raise or reduce its fee at the Storyteller's discretion. Through the power of the ritual, the Harbinger will be able to locate its recipient, wherever she may be, living or dead, and deliver the letter. The recipient will then have 24 hours to write a reply (writing materials are provided), which the wraith will review and return subject to the same limitations (the return fee is included in the initial payment). The amount of time this takes is indeterminate. In game terms, the Storyteller will facilitate the process, reviewing and approving the content of each message. If the recipient is a deceased PC, the Storyteller may choose to contact her player. While in game terms the wraith is capable of finding anyone, it may refuse a request which the Storyteller deems unfit for her chronicle. The message sent must be to a person of significance to the writer of the message. Writing a letter to an admired person who the writer never met will not meet the ritual's requirements. In addition, in the event the recipient is or might be dead, neither of the messages may seek or disclose any information about the circumstances of the departed's death. The Harbingers are uninterested in involving themselves in affairs beyond the shroud and will refuse any such requests. The message must also not seek or disclose any information as to the disposition of the departed soul, or any information that might inform the living about the nature of death and the afterlife. It is simply a personal letter; the kind she may have written before her death. You may only cast this ritual once every 6 months, though the Harbinger denying your request does not count as a casting. Those rare few who have mastered this ritual are known to demand exorbitant prices for its performance. There are no known instances of this ritual successfully contacting an Antediluvian or other being of extraordinary power; the Harbingers will simply refuse any such request. The wraith that is summoned is brought forth by specific magical means. It cannot be compelled, coerced, followed, affected by powers, or summoned again. Any attempt to do so violates the ritual's magic and the wraith will immediately disappear, unable to be affected.

This ritual draws the discarded remnants of dead bodies that decomposed in the nearby area to provide a supply of vessels for reanimation. To perform this ritual, you must prepare a true corpse by force feeding it food from a funeral repast until its stomach is full. The corpse must then be reanimated using Shambling Hordes (see **MET VTM, Chapter Four: Disciplines, page 175**). The zombie is then buried as 3 points of your Blood is spread around the area. One hour later, a number of zombies equal to three times your Occult score will erupt from the consecrated earth. This legion of creatures is composed of 3-point Stock NPCs that act with one mind. The horde will follow simple commands, and functions as a group. For example, you cannot command half of your horde to follow one enemy and half to follow the other. If powers are used to enhance the legion, it may only have a single instance of a power in effect as if the legion were a single target; the legion may not have multiple applications of the same effect or have effects that only target some of the zombies. All of the zombies are created by summoning remnants of decomposed corpses from the area. This results in a wave of creatures that are unclothed, patchworked together from multiple parts, and appear to be utterly nondescript people. Should one be killed, the creature crumbles to the ground and turns to ash. The legion does not count against your limit of zombies based on your Occult skill level. A necromancer may only summon one legion within a lunar cycle. At sunrise, any zombies created by this power immediately crumble into dust.

By burning 1 point of Blood from your target over an open flame, you gain a limited mystical mastery over her. In the very next opposed challenge against the victim, you automatically win the initial test. If your target spends Willpower to retest, you resolve the challenge normally from that point forward. Should Blood Mastery fail to trigger by dawn, the ritual expires.

Once the ritual is complete, make an opposed challenge against your intended target using the Thaumaturgy test pool. If you succeed, your victim cannot speak, write down, or otherwise communicate anything negative about you. If she tries, her voice (or hand) simply cannot to do so. The effects of this ritual last until dawn.

You must meditate on the connection between you and your sire while intoning this ritual. Upon completion of the ritual, you establish a gentle telepathic communication with your sire from anywhere in the world. Your sire has the option to refuse the telepathic contact, and should that happen, you feel connected, but receive no reply. If your sire is in torpor or dead you receive a distinct empty feeling, rather than no sense of reply. Once established, this link lasts for an hour.

Defense of the Sacred Haven prevents sunlight from entering a room up to 10 steps across in size. A mystical darkness blankets the area. Sunlight reflects off windows or magically fails to pass through doors or other portals. To invoke this ritual's protection, you must draw sigils in your own blood on all the affected windows and doors. The ritual lasts as long as you stay in the room in which you cast it.

The first time someone attempts to use the Pierce the Heart combat maneuver against you, that weapon's wood mystically crumbles to dust as it touches you, and the attack automatically misses. Once this ritual blocks one attempt to stake you, the ritual ends.

A Vessel of Transference must be between the size of a small cup and a one-gallon/four-liter jug. Whenever an individual's bare skin touches a container enchanted with Engaging the Vessel of Transference, she feels a tingling, noticeable chill against her flesh. The Vessel of Transference triggers the first time a character other than the ritual's caster touches it. Once activated, the vessel draws out 1 point of the individual's Blood, and then magically preserves the Blood until the vessel's seal is broken. The ritual only switches Blood between itself and a subject if it touches bare skin — even thin cotton gloves keep it from activating. A Vessel of Transference is fragile and automatically breaks if used in an attack. Individuals with 2 or more dots of the Occult skill recognize the sigil and the chill of discomfort, and can identify a Vessel of Transference, discerning the purpose of the container. The two most common uses of this ritual are to covertly create a blood bond and to obtain a sample of a subject's blood for ritual or experimental purposes.

The primary component of Illuminate the Trail of Prey is the birth name of your target or a picture drawn of her face created by someone with 2 or more dots of the Crafts skill. You do not need to see your target to cast Illuminate the Trail of Prey, but you must cast the ritual in a location that she has visited since the last sunrise, and you must best the target in an opposed challenge using the Thaumaturgy test pool. If you fail this challenge, you cannot try again against the same target for the rest of the night. If you succeed in the challenge, glowing footprints appear in the earth. These footprints lead to your target. Only you can perceive these footprints, and the level of brightness depends on how long it has been since she was last in this location. Old tracks burn less brightly, while fresh tracks blaze with light. Illuminate the Trail of Prey ends at sunrise. This ritual can track your foe so long as she travels over the earth, but the route follows the exact path that the individual took — which can make following a target difficult. Illuminate the Trail of Prey can track someone walking, running, or traveling in a vehicle so long as it passes over the earth. However, if your target passes over water or flies through the air, the trail will disappear at the point she left the earth.

Through ritual concentration, you can transform 1 point of your Blood into a small red sphere the size of a common marble. Casting this ritual draws that point of Blood from your system. At a later time, you can place this sphere in your mouth, crush it between your teeth, and mentally command it to turn back into blood, thus drinking the blood and refilling your Blood pool. The entire process of reabsorbing a point of Blood requires one simple action. If another character is present when you create a blood sphere, you can teach that character the mental command to transform the sphere into blood. If she places the blood sphere in her mouth, she can then give the mental command, allowing her to use the blood sphere in the same way you would. Of course, since your own blood is used to create the blood sphere, the subject establishes one step of a blood bond to the caster of this ritual. You can create a number of blood spheres equal to of the number of dots you possess of the Occult skill. If you make a blood sphere that would take you above this limit, a previously existing sphere is immediately destroyed. Ritualists know that allowing another individual – particularly another thaumaturge – to have access to your blood is very dangerous. Users should consider themselves warned.

During the casting of this ritual, you must use mortal blood to draw a circle on the ground (or other flat surface). This circle has a diameter of up to one step for each dot of the Occult skill that you possess. Once created, a Warding Circle cannot be moved without destroying it. You might paint a ward on a piece of plywood, but you destroy the Warding Circle if you move the wood. By default, your Warding Circle affects partially supernatural creatures, such as ghouls or mortals with werewolf or fae blood. If you have 3 or more dots in your primary path of Thaumaturgy, your ward also affects vampires, werewolves, and fae. If you have 5 dots in your primary path of Thaumaturgy, your ward also affects ghosts, spirits, elementals, demons, and characters who are psychically projected. Affected character types who pass through your Warding Circle take 3 points of aggravated damage. When creating a ward, it is possible to exclude certain creature types. A thaumaturge with 5 dots in her primary path can make a Warding Circle that allows vampires to enter but damages the other listed creature types. Individuals who are subject to damage from a Warding Circle can sense its presence when they approach within one step of the circle. The ward created by this ritual is spherical, making it difficult to jump over or burrow beneath the protection. A Warding Circle never affects the caster and may be tuned to exclude other individuals, so long as those individuals are present during the ward's casting and contribute a point of Blood to the ritual. Wards cannot be tuned after casting; adding another individual to the ward after it is cast requires the caster to destroy the ward and create another in its place. The blood used to create a Warding Circle does not fade until the ritual's duration ends. Individuals who would be harmed by a Warding Circle cannot damage it. An individual cannot use a mop to clear away a ward that would affect her. Warding Circles can be broken by individuals who are not targeted by that ward's protection or by the natural destruction of the environment. If you draw a circle in blood across a highway, it could be smeared by the passage of cars, washed away by rain, or broken by a mortal with a mop. Warding Circles cannot inflict damage on a character more than once per turn. Casting a Warding Circle takes the normal casting time, five minutes, if you only wish to establish a short-term ward, which lasts for the rest of the night. If you wish to create a long-term ward, lasting a year and a day, you must expend a downtime action to cast it.

The caster must spend thirty days casting this ritual over a gallon of red wine, spending a single point of Blood every five days. Thereafter, the blood and wine infuse to become a wholly new substance. A vampire that drinks a full glass of Blood Wine receives the equivalent of a point of Blood. Drinking additional glasses of Blood Wine does indeed grant more points of Blood, but also grants a Beast Trait for every two glasses consumed. In addition, the vampire feels a grand sense of euphoria from the mystical libations. Each casting yields 16 traits worth of Blood. The newly created Blood Wine is free of any traces of the creator's vitae. Indeed, any traces of vampire blood added after will create a noticeably different aroma that any consumers will readily notice. This blood cannot be combined with food or mixed beyond its completed form.

Whenever you use a Path of Technomancy power on a device, you can leave behind a digital sentry. By spending 3 standard actions during or after the use of any Path of Technomancy power (instead of the normal 5 minutes of ritual casting time), you automatically gain familiarity with the device for the next 30 days. In addition, you will receive a psychic notification each time someone attempts to use it during that time period, though you will not know who that person is. You can have a number of active Digital Sentries equal to the number of dots you possess of the Computer skill. If you make a Digital Sentry that would take you above this limit, the oldest Digital Sentry you have active is rendered inert and you immediately lose familiarity with the object that contained it.

The caster writes the message on whatever medium she deems appropriate, be it spraypainting on a wall, writing out a message in calligraphy, or typing an email. Then she must press a bloody thumbprint on to the writing (be it a page, a wall, or an electronic device). If anyone but the intended audience sees the message, it will appear as a mundane writing, like a grocery list, a gang tag, or a spam email.

Once complete, this power lets a single ghoul hold 3 additional points of your Blood beyond their normal maximum for the next calendar year; however, the ghoul cannot use the blood of other donors to surpass her maximum. If your ghoul ingests vitae from a different vampire, a ghoul may choose to spend your blood last in order to retain this benefit for as long as possible. For humans, this increases their capacity from 5 to 8, but other animals may not be able to hold that much. A ghoul may only be under the effects of this power from a single domitor. Any additional applications of this ritual invalidates any previous applications.

To use this ritual, you must have a lock of hair or the blood or your mortal or ghoul target and successfully win an opposed challenge. If your target is within a one-mile range of you, you may inflict her with one of the common curses associated with vampirism. As a result, your target gains one of the following flaws for the duration of the evening (see **MET VTM, Chapter Five: Merits and Flaws, pages. 259-266**): Cannot Cross Running Water, Cursed (must be tied to vampire mythology), Death Sight, Eerie Presence (must be tied to vampire mythology), Haunted, Obvious Predator, Pied Piper, or Repelled by Religion. A target may only be affected by a single instance of this ritual at a time.

There is no set list of ingredients for creating the magical paste. Often the sorcerer tries to find ingredients she believes will produce a desired effect on a specific target, but often it is left over reagents from other thaumaturgical projects. When the salve is smeared on an object, the object will malfunction in some way. The Storyteller will determine the precise effect, but it will never be in a way that the Setite directly and immediately benefits from. For example, it might alter the lock of a door so it cannot be unlocked with its original key. However, it will not suddenly be able to be opened by a key the Setite holds. Whatever the effect, it will end after 1 day has passed. The paste does not have any effect when applied to a living, once living, or undead creature. A Setite can only have three applications of this paste active at a time. If she creates another batch, the oldest batch is rendered inert. Each batch has one use.

To cast this ritual, you must freeze a point of your Blood that, before melting, you crush into shards of ice that you then dust upon an object you wish to preserve. This object can be no larger than a car or small truck and cannot be living or unliving. Once complete, the icy blood is mystically absorbed into the object and the item is protected from any wear and tear due to age, the elements, water, etc. This ritual does not protect against deliberate vandalism, fire, or blunt force trauma. Preservation of the Perfect Form lasts for 50 years but can be cast again on the same object to extend this time period by an additional 50 years. You can preserve a number of objects equal to the number of dots you possess of the Occult skill. If you attempt to preserve an object that would take you above this limit, the oldest preserved item begins to age normally. If you cast the ritual twice on the same object, the one object counts as two for the purpose of the Occult skill limit.

The caster must saturate some of her ancestral soil with a point of her Blood. Thereafter, she must pour a small amount of natural water through the mixture, straining it into a small vial or container. Until the next sunrise, she may consume the contents of the vial as a simple action to regain 3 points of Willpower. Anyone else consuming the contents gains no benefit. A Koldun can only possess one Vial of Reawakened Dead Water; any new casting renders previous vials inert.

To cast this ritual, the caster must drop a point of her Blood into a cast-iron cauldron and chant her name, rank, and purpose for being in the territory. Initially, the rite sends out a notification to the nearest chantry within a claimed domain. If the area is outside of a claimed domain, the message is sent to any chantry within a 50-mile radius. Any Tremere within the chantry at the time of the ritual's casting are immediately aware of this introduction and are psychically aware of the location of the caster. They may respond with a brief message giving the caster the knowledge of the location of the chantry and permission to arrive. If no chantry is located within the radius the caster becomes aware of the absence of a chantry.

Upon successfully completing this ritual, for the next hour you can no longer be tracked by your scent (see **MET VTM, Volume 2 Issue 1, Chapter: Five, Core Rules & Dramatic Systems, page 114**). This will also thwart powers which involve tracking, such as the ritual Illuminate the Trail of Prey. Alternatively, you can spend a downtime action while performing a more complex but highly subtle version of this ritual that allows you to alter your scent to lead to that of a specific place or person that you are familiar with. If employed in this manner, if someone uses scent to track you, the tracker will be led to that different person or location.

To cast this ritual, you must meditate in complete silence, uninterrupted, and sever the ear of a still-living creature that you hold in your left hand as you enter Psychic Projection. In most cases, this will result in the gaining of a Beast trait. For the remainder of the night, whenever you utilize Psychic Projection you may communicate in a whisper without manifesting.

It is rumored that the Anarchs first developed this modern ritual. Banish Big Brother allows the caster to detect and potentially nullify technological eavesdropping devices within line of sight. You can turn off microphones, surveillance cameras, and so forth, but not undetectable, distant devices, such as satellite surveillance. Until the next sunrise, you always sense when you are being recorded, and you can preemptively disable the device involved, before it successfully captures a recording of you. Recording devices affected by Banish Big Brother become hopelessly inoperative until one hour passes, after which they resume normal functioning.

To use this ritual, you must chant over a blade, typically a knife or sword. Once completed, the magic in the weapon remains dormant until triggered. To activate the weapon, you must use a standard action to slice your hand and spread your blood along the length of the blade. Only the blood of the thaumaturge who cast the ritual can activate the blade, and only she can use it. This process causes 1 point of normal damage. Once activated, the weapon flickers with a cold, bluish flame. The weapon inflicts aggravated damage on all supernatural creatures with a successful attack. This ability lasts for one attack for each dot of the Occult skill you possess, or until the weapon leaves your possession. The weapon's wielder cannot choose to do normal damage and reserve aggravated strikes. Each successful attack uses one aggravated strike until there are none left, at which point the weapon reverts to inflicting normal damage.

Once the Bloodstone ritual is complete, you have a mystical connection to the stone and can tell its relative position and general distance from you at all times. A caster can create a number of Bloodstones equal to the number of dots she possesses of the Occult skill. If a Bloodstone is Obfuscated or otherwise supernaturally hidden, the caster can follow the trail until she reaches the general location of the stone, but the connection becomes blurred at that point, and she can no longer feel the Bloodstone's precise location beyond that point.

This ritual allows you to see through the eyes of a bird and to hear through its ears. You must select a bird of prey for this ritual. After you finish the ritual's incantation, the bird obeys your mental commands to a point. She may fly in a desired route, spy for you, and even ferry small objects. However, she cannot fight for you, unless specifically trained for said purpose. The bird returns to you after finishing its flight. Once it returns, if you do not poke out the bird's eyes, you will suffer a three-night period of blindness. This ritual lasts until sunrise.

Once this ritual is complete, the target corpse appears to have died of natural causes, even if it was drained of all blood or horrifically mangled. This ritual does not add blood to an exsanguinated corpse or heal broken bones, but it does prevent mundane investigations from finding evidence of foul play. Supernatural investigations are capable of seeing through this illusion with some difficulty. Such investigations suffer a -3 penalty when used to investigate a corpse targeted by this ritual. The effects of Illusion of Peaceful Death last for one month.

Once the ritual is complete, all machines targeted by your focused hatred start to malfunction. Use your standard action to stop any machine or electronic device that you can clearly see. For the next hour, this ritual can be used to kill car engines, render flash drives inoperable, drain the battery of a cell phone, stop life-support machines, etc. Essentially, Machine Blitz stops any machine more complex than a rope and pulley. This ritual only stops machines; it does not grant any control over them. The effects of this ritual are invisible and appear to be coincidental. Repairing an object targeted by Machine Blitz requires an appropriate skill, such as Computer, of 3 dots or more and roughly an hour of work.

The paste created by Recure of the Homeland can heal 2 aggravated wounds each night. Only you can benefit from this paste, and you must use it within one minute of completing the ritual, or the magic fades.

You must possess a point of the subject's vitae which you slowly pour into a cast-iron cauldron that is bubbling over with distilled water. The ritual takes 3 hours to complete during which you must remain in a deep trance. Afterwards, you gain knowledge of the subject's lineage going back 3 generations (i.e., her sire, grandsire, and great-grandsire) as their images appear in the water of the cauldron along with their most recognized name. With this information, it is possible that you can determine the subject's clan, though doing so may require a Lore Specialization at the Storyteller's discretion if the members of the subject's lineage are not sufficiently well known. This ritual does not reveal the potency of generation or diablerie unless you know for certain the generation of the target's forebears. This ritual does not grant familiarity with the target or her predecessors.

Spend 1 point of Blood and five minutes burning incense and reciting a ritual chant above a small, watertight earthenware vessel – one capable of holding no more than one cubic liter of material. Followers of Set traditionally choose Egyptian canopic jars for this purpose, but any clay or ceramic vessel of the correct size is suitable. Objects can be placed in or removed from the Canopic Jar normally, as long as they can fit inside. Once the ritual is complete, the vessel and any inanimate object it contains becomes immune to all powers that could view it remotely, such as the Scry ritual or the Auspex power Clairvoyance. Supernatural powers operating under the user's direct gaze, such as Heightened Senses or Spirit's Touch, are unaffected by Canopic Jar. In addition, the vessel becomes supernaturally resistant to damage, especially from fire. The object can sustain 6 points of damage before breaking and takes no damage from sources of fire. Animate objects and creatures, such as small animals (or supernatural creatures transformed into small animals) destroy a Canopic Jar's supernatural power if they enter it, and attempting to do so causes the object to revert to a mundane item. You may have a number of these objects equal to twice your dots in the Occult skill. If you create additional objects, you must choose which of your current objects become inert.

This ritual allows you to create minor gifts or trinkets that are more likely to be received positively by non-vampires. Your recipient is not obligated to receive the gift and she is under no compulsion to think highly of you, but in matters of diplomacy, every little bit helps. Spend 1 point of Blood and recite an incantation over your chosen object and choose a non-vampire creature type. The object can restore 1 spent unit of fuel to the creature type chosen, such as Gnosis, Glamour, or Blood. If you have the appropriate Lore for the creature type you have chosen, the gift can restore up to 3 spent units of fuel. Energy may be withdrawn from the gift by interacting with it in a meaningful way that is appropriate to the object and that takes at least 1 standard action. The imbuing lasts 30 days and the energy may be withdrawn 1 point at a time or all at once. You may have a number of these objects equal to your Occult skill. Any creations beyond this limit cause your oldest creation to become inert.

After ritually preparing a poisonous snake, drain it of all its blood and ingests its venom. The toxicity of the venom must be at least 10. Most Loyalist Assamites of the Sorcerer caste prefer to use Egyptian Vipers or other spitting serpents, though Anarch Assamite Sorcerers' swear by the rattlesnake. Once cast, and for the remainder of the night, whenever you employ either of the attack options for Taste of Death, the attack also counts as a Blinding Attack without the need to spend a point of Willpower. In addition, this does not result in a reduction of damage or a penalty to your test pool. Unfortunately, the venomous magic is not so powerful as to survive outside of the body long enough to be used to coat weapons.

To prepare a Mnemosyne Crystal you obtain a perfectly clear quartz crystal roughly the size of a golf ball and submerge it in a point of Blood. Once complete, the crystal takes on a reddish hue denoting it is ready to store memories. To use a Mnemosyne Crystal, you must spend a point of Blood and hold the Crystal to the forehead of the target of your Forgetful Mind. If your use of Forgetful Mind is successful, the memories that you have removed are stored in the crystal and cannot be recovered through further uses of Forgetful Mind. To restore the memories to their original target, you must simply break the crystal. A character with Spirit's Touch or a comparable power may activate the crystal to view the memory within. You can maintain a number of Mnemosyne Crystals equal to the number of dots you possess of the Occult skill. If you attempt to create a Mnemosyne Crystals that would take you above this limit, the oldest Mnemosyne Crystals is immediately destroyed, restoring the saved memories to its owner.

To cast this ritual, recite an incantation as you burn a piece of snakeskin over an open flame. For the next 24 hours, whenever you fail in an opposed challenge using a power from the Path of Corruption, you may expend the effect of this ritual. If you do, your failed use of the Path of Corruption cannot be detected by anyone, including the target or by any parties attempting to use the Awareness skill. You may only cast this ritual once per night.

This ritual lets you create a small ward that will alert you when someone moves within one step of it. Once this happens, the ward becomes inert and will not give you further alerts. You will not gain any knowledge of who this individual might be, or the number of people present, though you are free to investigate through other supernatural means. In addition, you will receive this notification even if you are removed from your body, such as if you are using Psychic Projection or utilizing Possession. You may reactivate an inert ward of yours by spending 3 standard actions retracing the sigils. The ward you create must be at roughly the size of a standard 81/2" by 11"sheet of paper, but you may hide it from sight. For this reason, these wards are often concealed above doorways, in books, or as part of a work of art. If the ward is visible, individuals with the Occult skill who scrutinize the area can detect it. The ward will detect only humanoids. Animals, even supernatural ones or vampires using Subsume the Spirit, will not activate it; however, werewolves or similar shapeshifters will trigger the ward, even in their animal form. Once cast, a ward may not be moved or it will activate and lose its power, even if the object itself is portable. If your ward is somehow moved and then activated, you will not be aware of its new location. You may have a number of these wards in existence equal to your Occult skill. Creating additional wards requires you to relinquish your connection to an existing ward.

To cast this ritual, you must sit in a circle of 13 candles in a state of deep meditation. Any disturbances to this meditation will abort the casting and cause you to have to begin again. Once completed all mystical or mundane taints to your body (i.e., mystical poisons, diseases, taint from contact with the infernal, etc.), as well as unwanted foreign objects (such as Shaft of Belated Quiescence or Indelible Mark), are removed. This ritual does not affect blood bonds or magical effects; it only affects things that are poisonous, foreign, or toxic in nature. This ritual can remove Fleshcraft or Bonecraft alterations but cannot remove the effects of Severed Hand, as its magic is external. Should you suffer from a persistent flaw such as Disease Carrier or Beacon of the Unholy, the effects will return 30 minutes after the casting.

Once you spend a point of Blood to activate the Movement of the Mind power Manipulate, the effects of the power last the entire night. Thereafter, you do not have to activate it an additional time to move additional objects, enabling you to use your abilities to perform even mundane or arbitrary tasks. You retain full telekinetic ability to lift and maneuver objects, subject to your standard weight limit as per Manipulate. You remain unable to exert control over objects that you can no longer see. Making use of your telekinetic abilities in combat still requires the same action cost to perform the task unaided and is subject to the standard limitations of Manipulate.

Whenever you use the Lure of Flames powers of Flame Bolt or Engulf, you never miss. Make the opposed challenge as usual. If you succeed, resolve the challenge normally. If you fail, your power still impacts your target and instead deals 1 point of aggravated damage. This power has no effect on Hand of Flame and does not set your target on fire if you fail an opposed challenge using Engulf. NOTE: This ritual does not grant you the ability to exceed the maximum number of attackers or hit otherwise untargetable targets; you must still be able to initiate a challenge normally. This ritual lasts until the end of the night.

This ritual requires you to start a small, controlled fire in the center of a room or haven you wish to protect. Once the fire is lit, you must fan the flames and fill the room with smoke. Once properly extinguished, the smoke turns to a fine layer of ash, coating everything in the area. Any homunculi, spirit servants, or creatures created by you through Thaumaturgy may be exempted from this ritual at your discretion. For the next lunar month, if anyone aside from you disturbs the ash, it ignites and burns for one round, immediately destroying everything inside the warded room. Anyone caught in the blaze immediately suffers 3 points of aggravated damage in the ensuing conflagration. With the exception of the Koldun's ancestral soil as explained below, all objects caught in the blaze are immediately destroyed and rendered unrecognizable. If a Koldun has kept her ancestral soil in the protected area, it remains unharmed, disguised among burning embers for its owner to collect when it is safe. This ritual may only be cast once per room.

Until the next sunrise, you feel a sharp pain in your forehead whenever another individual uses supernatural powers to actively spy on you. This ritual's caster also discovers the type of attempted surveillance, whether listening, watching, telepathic contact, etc. This ritual does not block these powers in any way, nor does it offer any clues about the observer's location, nor her the identity; it only alerts you that someone is spying. Detect the Hidden Observer does not protect against passive uses of supernatural powers. You cannot detect a Nosferatu using Obfuscate to spy on you, but you could detect an individual using the ritual Scry or the Auspex power Clairvoyance.

Performing this ritual requires a great act of courage. You must swallow a small glowing ember, suffering a single point of aggravated damage. Until dawn, anyone who voluntarily touches you receives a burn. This ritual does not damage those you touch nor those who accidentally come in contact with you. Anyone who hits you with a Brawl attack takes 1 point of aggravated damage. Anyone who attempts to Grapple you takes ever-increasing damage until they release you or until you break free of the Grapple. On the first turn of a Grapple, the character holding you takes 1 point of aggravated damage on her everyman initiative, just as she would if she'd struck you with a Brawl attack. On the second turn of the Grapple, the character holding you takes 2 points of aggravated damage. On the third turn, she takes 3 points of aggravated damage. Damage inflicted by Flesh of Fiery Touch increases by 1 point each turn until your captor lets go, dies, or loses consciousness.

While under the effects of this ritual, Physical attacks pass through you. You can step unhindered through any solid barrier. The ritual lasts for five minutes, but you can end it early simply by turning away from the piece of mirror that you hold. While under the effects of Incorporeal Passage, opponents can still target you with Mental or Social attacks. Once you invoke Incorporeal Passage, you can only move forward or stand still. You cannot turn, nor go backwards. The magic involved in the ritual prevents you from engaging in any form of active attack while you are in this incorporeal state, though you can activate defensive powers. For example, you cannot use Dread Gaze, but you can activate Majesty. If Incorporeal Passage ends while you are in contact with a solid object, you take 1 to 5 points of normal damage, based on the size of the object, and your body ejects the object. If Incorporeal Passage ends while you are fully or mostly inside of a solid object, such as a wall, all of your health levels fill with damage, and you are shunted into the nearest empty space large enough to hold your body, where you immediately fall into torpor (if you are a vampire) or begin the process of bleeding to death (if you are a mortal).

You can enchant a mirror that reflects the true form of supernatural creatures; vampires appear pale and corpselike, werewolves appear in their half-wolf form, the fae appear in all of their wild, glamorous beauty, and ghosts are visible in the mirror, appearing as semi-transparent versions of themselves. This silver mirror must be no less than four inches wide and no more than 18 inches long. Mirror of Second Sight only functions for the caster. To all others, it is a just another mirror.

First, you must tie a blue silken cord around your neck while intoning the chant to activate the ritual. Once the ritual has been cast, the very next time a character targets you with a Presence power or a Presence-based technique, Pavis of the Foul Presence reflects the effect of that Presence power back upon the aggressor. Once triggered, the ribbon around your neck turns to ash, ending the effects of Pavis of the Foul Presence. Resolve the Presence power's opposed challenge as normal with the aggressor. If your attacker wins the challenge, the incoming Presence power simply has no effect on you. The attacker must wait at least one hour before targeting you with the same power again, although she can target you with other Presence powers. For the next hour, you are immune to the power which triggered Pavis of the Foul Presence, if the same character attempts to target you with that power again. If you win the challenge to resist the incoming Presence power, Pavis of the Foul Presence turns the power back on the user. In this case, that power automatically affects the user, as if you had used it on her. Note that Pavis of the Foul Presence only reflects powers that specifically target you. This ritual does not affect powers that do not target you directly, such as Majesty or Awe.

To cast the ritual, you must slice open your arm and bleed into a mystically prepared earthen bowl. The magic of the ritual merges and animates whatever random unimportant items you happen to have lying around your workshop – glass beakers, dissection tools, pencils, crumpled papers, semiprecious stones – and it binds those materials together into a small humanoid form animated by the power of the ritual and your blood. The main benefit of working with a Homunculus is the amount of time and energy it saves you preparing all of your ritual components and performing mundane tasks, granting you 2 additional downtime actions a month. In addition, if your servant assists you in casting a ritual, the time required to cast that ritual reduces, as if the ritual is one level lower, to a minimum of one minute when casting a level 1 ritual. For example, casting a level 3 ritual with the help of this Homunculi takes 10 minutes, instead of the standard 15 minutes. A thaumaturge can only have one Homunculus in existence at any one time. If she creates a new one, the old one is destroyed. ## **Homunculus Retainer** **Homunculus** 2-dot Retainer **Specialties:** Occult, Lore **Effective Health:** OOOO Your Homunculus has a test pool of 4 in most tests. In challenges involving Occult or Lore, its test pool is 8. A Homunculus is a naturally timid creature and flees if attacked, though it will try to defend its master's life at the cost of its own. It has no disciplines of its own, but it has a full understanding of all of your Thaumaturgical knowledge and can instruct others if so commanded. It is impervious to any mind-controlling disciplines or magic, as it is completely bound to your will.

This ritual turns an ordinary stake of rowan wood into a particularly vicious weapon. When the stake penetrates a vampire's body, the tip breaks off and begins working its way through the victim's flesh to her heart. The trip may take several hours or several nights, depending on where the stake struck. The stake eludes attempts to remove it, burrowing further into the victim's body to escape surgical removal. Vampires who have had their hearts removed by Serpentis (or are otherwise immune to staking) are immune to this internal attack. The ritual takes an entire night to complete. The stake must be carved of rowan wood, coated with 3 points of the caster's Blood, and blackened in an oak-wood fire. When the ritual is complete, the stake is enchanted to act as described below. A wielder performs an attack with a Shaft of Belated Quiescence as she would with a normal weapon. If she inflicts at least 1 point of damage after the target's Fortitude or similar defensive abilities reduce the incoming damage, the tip of the stake breaks off and begins burrowing. If the attack deals no damage, the stake can be used to make subsequent attacks until it strikes deep enough to activate. Once the tip of the stake is in the victim's body, she must make an opposed challenge every hour to avoid being staked, as the wood attempts to worm through her body. The caster uses her Thaumaturgy test pool versus the victim's Physical attribute + Survival to resolve this challenge. Each time the target succeeds in the opposed challenge, she takes 3 points of normal damage. If, at any point, the victim marks off an Incapacitated health level as a result of this damage, the tip pierces her heart. Removing the part of the body where the tip impacted, such as by a Vicissitude user activating Blood Form, or a vampire electing to cut off her arm, may stop the tip's progress, at the Storyteller's discretion. A character with 3 or more dots of the Medicine skill can remove the shaft by performing a 10-minute operation. Attempts to surgically remove the tip of the shaft are made using a character's Physical attribute + Medicine test pool against a difficulty rating of 10. Once the tip pierces the target's heart, it stakes a vampire and instantly kills mortals and partially supernatural creatures, such as ghouls. You can perform the Shaft of Belated Quiescence ritual on other wooden weapons, such as spears, arrows, practice swords, and pool cues, provided that they are made of rowan wood. The ritual cannot, however, augment a bullet or a weapon that does not have the staking quality. A thaumaturge can have one Shaft of Belated Quiescence in existence for every 2 dots she possesses of the Occult skill. If she makes a new Shaft of Belated Quiescence that exceeds this limit, a shaft created earlier is destroyed.

You must build a small fire, let it burn down to smoldering coals, and then swallow one of those coals. By swallowing one of these coals and taking one level of unsoakable aggravated damage, you become protected against further sources of fire. You ignore the next 5 points of damage you take from fire sources, suffering no harm. In addition, if all of the damage from a particular fire is ignored, as long as you remain within the same fire you will continue to ignore damage from that same source. This applies to mundane and mystical sources. For example, if a character under the effects of this ritual stood in a bonfire or is targeted by Engulf or Firestorm, she would be immune to both the initial and ongoing damage; however, if she was targeted by a second instance of Engulf, she would not be immune. Once the caster leaves the fire or the fire is extinguished the effects of this ritual end.

To enact this ritual, you must subject yourself to 15 minutes of low amperage electricity. At the completion of this arduous experience, spend one point of Blood to trap the electrical energy within you. For the remainder of the night, any machine within 100 feet that could expose your vampiric nature will be fooled into registering you as having life signs. For example, heat cameras will show normal human temperatures and EKG machines will register a heartbeat.

You must either have familiarity with the target object, which can be no larger than a passenger van, or be able to create a close facsimile of the object using an appropriate Craft skill of level 2 or higher or other blood magic meant to create simulacrum such as Path of Conjuring. Once enacted, you can either whisper a phrase akin to the target item's true name (if you have familiarity with it) or destroy the simulacrum of the object. Either way, if the target object is a mundane item with no magical effects on it, the object is destroyed. If the object has magical effects on it, those effects are dispelled for 24 hours. This ritual can only be used on the same object once per night. This ritual can only be used on a single target item that you are aware of. You may not craft a generic facsimile of a silver weapon and then hope to render a nearby klaive inert.

This ritual can only be cast upon a willing target; supernatural coercion, such as Dominate, cannot be used to force a subject to become willing for the purpose of this ritual. To enact the ritual, you must spend 1 point of Blood to infuse the prepared ink with supernatural qualities. Afterward, while you are within six steps of a willing target currently undergoing a body modification process, such as tattooing, branding, or piercing, you can spend another point of Blood to activate the ink's magical properties. You need not be the person administering the body modification to your target, but you must be within line of sight during or shortly after its application. If more than 15 minutes pass after the completion of the body modification, the ritual can no longer be used on the target. For a year-and-a-day after activation, the target's body modification cannot be removed, either by surgical processes such as laser tattoo removal, or by supernatural means such as vampiric healing or use of Vicissitude. For the same year-and-a-day duration, the character possessing the body modification is considered to be Familiar to you, even if more than 30 nights have passed since your last interaction. In addition, the character possessing the body modification can be targeted by any of your powers that would normally require line of sight, even if the target is not currently within your line of sight. Powers requiring Gaze and Focus function normally – you must still have the target's Gaze and Focus if a power requires it. An Indelible Mark cannot be removed through non-magical means, but the modification can be covered up. For example, if the modification is a tattoo, the target can get another tattoo over the Indelible Mark in order to disguise; however, doing so does not cause the ritual's power to prematurely end. One cannot remove an Indelible Mark by itself. Instead, the target can sacrifice the entire limb to which it is attached in order to temporarily cease the ritual's supernatural effects. If the limb is somehow restored, such as by supernatural healing, the Indelible Mark will also be restored, magically reappearing at the next sunrise. Such a temporary cessation of effect does not change the ritual's initial duration. You can create a number of Indelible Marks equal to the number of dots you possess of the Occult skill. If you make an Indelible Mark that would take you above this limit, the oldest Indelible Mark you have active immediately ends.

Once complete, the next time a participant enters a rage or hunger frenzy, she may continue to choose the targets of her attacks while still maintaining any bonuses she might have for being in frenzy. This applies even if those benefits require a natural frenzy. In addition, when a character who suffers from a rage frenzy and is reduced to the Incapacitated wound track, she does not automatically transition to a fear frenzy.

You must melt down and ingest a small amount of mirror that contains either a back or front layering of silver. Consuming the mixture of molten glass and silver causes 1 point of unsoakable aggravated damage. For the remainder of the evening you may attempt to achieve an exceptional success whenever you are targeted by a blood magic ritual. This is an exception to the rule stating that you may only score an exceptional success if you are the attacker in a challenge. You must meet all of the other qualifications to achieve the exceptional success, according to the rules for exceptional successes. If you achieve an exceptional success, you may choose to not only be unaffected by the ritual, but to also redirect the effects of the ritual back on to the original caster. To do so you must expend your simple action and make a contested Thaumaturgy roll against the character who originally targeted you. If you succeed, your opponent suffers the normal result of the power as if you were the originator. You may not apply the focus effect of the power, nor any bonuses from an exceptional success. Reverse Protocol can only be used on blood magic rituals that use an opposed challenge to deliver their effect; it will not reflect powers that augment brawl or melee attacks such as Shaft of Belated Quiescence or Bastone Diabolico. Once you have successfully reflected a ritual back onto its caster the effects of this ritual end.

To cast this ritual, pour 1 point of Blood into a cast-iron cauldron and chant your name, rank, and solemn oath to protect the chantry at all costs. Multiple participants may cast this ritual at the same time. If they do not cast the ritual themselves, they may still participate and give their oath, but they do not gain its benefits. At the completion of this ritual, you and any other casters are considered dedicated to that chantry and gain a +5 wild card bonus to blood magic test pools while within the walls of that chantry. A Tremere remains dedicated to a chantry for a year-and-a-day and may only be dedicated to a single chantry at a time. If she dedicates herself to another chantry, the dedication to the previous chantry ends.

You must have at least one dot in the Medicine skill to learn this ritual. Spend 15 minutes embedding a set of tiny magnetic needles in various pressure point locations of your body (this does not inflict any damage). For the remainder of the night, whenever you spend a point of Blood to activate a power from the Path of Blood, you may choose to instantly heal 1 point of normal damage (note that this does not apply to A Taste for Blood as that power does not have an activation cost). If you use a qualifying power but have not suffered any damage, this ritual has no effect. The needles from this ritual will remain in your body when you heal damage (so long as you desire) but will be expelled overnight as you sleep.

As you recite an incantation, you must swallow a handful poisonous berries such as nightshade, yew, or juniper. Unlike most food, the berries will not cause you to vomit. While this ritual is active, if you participate in Sabbat ritae such as the Vaulderie, you will not cause the ritae to fail because of your lack of faith. At sunrise, the ritual will end, and your body will violently reject the berries, inducing vomiting.

To cast this ritual, spend 15 minutes outdoors letting the wind of the natural air pass over your ancestral soil. European Tzimisce claim it reminds them faintly of the air currents of the Carpathian Mountains. You must then take a small pinch of the soil and place it in a container with a lid, cork, or some means of creating an air-tight seal. For the next lunar month, you may spend a simple action to open this container while speaking a mystical Koldunic phrase and target any one fire no larger than a family home. At the end of the turn, the targeted fire is immediately extinguished by a massive gust of wind. This gust ends the lingering effects of powers such as Wall of Fire, Engulf, and Firestorm. The winds linger for 5 minutes, extinguishing any new fires at the end of each turn. Once opened, the container is rendered inert as the ritual is expended. You may only have 3 of these bottles in existence at a time with new castings rendering the oldest inert.

Innocence of the Child's Heart requires the ritualistic sacrifice of a mortal child and the harvesting of her heart. You must dip a beloved toy that once belonged to that child in the heart's blood. The toy quickly absorbs all of the blood until it is clean. As long as you carry the toy, your aura appears pure white, untainted by any signs of vampirism or diablerie. The ritual lasts for one week, plus an additional week for every dot of the Occult skill you possess. Naturally, this horrific ritual takes an extreme toll on the caster's Humanity. Unless the character is on the Path of Evil Revelations, she loses a point of Morality when she enacts this ritual.

You must create two identical mirrors of the same appropriate size, made with silver. Then, soak both mirrors in 2 points of your own Blood and chant over the course of three nights to create a special resonance link between the two objects. Once completed, you can stand before either mirror and recite the mystical password to open a magical gate between the two mirrors. Such powerful magic cannot be done swiftly. It requires three turns for the portal to open. The glass ripples and shimmers when ready, and only then can you step through the egress. You can take one willing passenger with you on this trip, but you must act swiftly, as the gateway is a crack in reality, which closes in two turns. The mirrors created by this ritual remain functional until broken or until the thaumaturge dies. You can only enchant one pair of mirrors at a time. If the thaumaturge creates another pair, the first set is destroyed. Only the thaumaturge who created the mirrors can use them, and once used, neither mirror can be used again until 10 minutes pass.

The Severed Hand requires you to completely immobilize your victim, normally accomplished by causing your victim to enter torpor. This ritual takes an entire night to perform, during which time you must sever the limb you wish to curse and coat it with an alchemical compound that prevents it from decaying or from being regenerated. Any thaumaturge who holds the severed limb receives a +3 bonus when targeting the limb's owner with Thaumaturgy powers. The damage caused by losing a limb can be healed in the normal manner, but the severed body part cannot be restored until the original limb is recovered or destroyed, or until a year and a day has passed. The severed limb can be concealed by powers like Mask of a Thousand Faces or replaced by use of powers like Vicissitude.

Scrying is the practice of remote viewing via a reflective, translucent substance, such as water. You must fill a wide silver bowl with purified spring water mixed with a drop of owl's blood. Next, you must concentrate on an individual or location familiar to you, gaze into the bowl, and make an opposed challenge using the Thaumaturgy test pool. If you succeed, you can see and hear what is happening around the target as though you were personally in her presence. This ritual lasts for a number of minutes equal to the number of dots you possess of the Occult skill. If used to Scry on a location, no challenge is required. You can view those surroundings as if you were standing in the center of the area. If you target a location with Scry, the viewpoint is immobile and cannot be changed for the duration of the ritual. You cannot use supernatural powers through Scry. If you attempt to Scry on an individual, and you have an object of personal value or deep connection to the target, such as a piece of her hair, a love letter, or so forth, you do not need to be familiar with the target to use this power. The object used to establish a link to your target crumbles to dust when this ritual ends. Scry automatically fails if the target is currently invisible, such as someone concealed by the powers of Obfuscate.

To create a Battle Ward, you must inscribe a circle of magic three steps in radius with your own blood. The circle must be inscribed into a hard fixed surface; a carpet, drop cloth, or a portable object will not suffice. Afterwards, and while inside of the Battle Ward, the thaumaturgist gains a +1 wild card bonus to her Dodge pool for every level of Thaumaturgy she possesses in her primary path. In addition, she gains a +3 wild card bonus to all test pools involving thaumaturgical powers and rituals for as long as she remains inside the circle. The paranoid blood magician only uses this ritual with great need, and when she is certain it cannot be taken over by another. Should another thaumaturge capture this circle, which is defined as her standing within the circle while you are outside of it, she gains the +3 bonus over all attacks against you but does not gain the circle's other benefits.

To create an Eye of Anubis, sculpt an eye out of stone and anoint it with honey and 1 point of your Blood. Later, and while in the presence of your target, complete the ritual by tightly grasping the Eye of Anubis as you gaze upon your target to imprint the essence of your target on it, holding it for at least 2 continuous minutes. Thereafter, you may break the Eye of Anubis to gain a mystical familiarity with the target that will last for one night. Once broken you may use one application of any one power that requires familiarity or an item of sympathetic connection to the target, such as a personal object, her birth name, or a sample of her hair, even if you do not have familiarity or possess such an item. Note that you do not actually receive these items. Once you use that one application of a power (whether it succeeds or fails), the effects of this ritual end. Once the Eye of Anubis has the essence of a target, until it is broken or its potency expires, the target will have a faint sense of someone watching her. Once created, these objects retain their potency for 90 days. You may have a number of these objects equal to your dots in the Occult skill, whether they are pre-cast or completed. If you create a new item, you must choose an existing item to become inert.

To prepare this ritual you and a single willing ally must ritually prepare two crystal necklaces, rings, or similar jewelry. Your ally does not need to know this ritual in order to participate. The ritual begins as the jewelry is submerged in a mixture of the two participants' blood consisting of one point of Blood from each participant. The caster then chants the ritual incantations while both participants hold the jewelry in the container of shared blood. At the end of the ritual the blood is drawn into the jewelry. For the rest of the night the two participants of the ritual may spend Willpower from their combined Willpower pool provided they are within 1 mile of one another. Such accessible additional Willpower may only be spent and does not add to any test pool. If one character spends the other person's Willpower, the Storyteller will immediately notify the other character of her reduced Willpower. This gift does not override effects that forbid a target from making a Willpower retest or increase its cost even if the other participant is not similarly affected by such a power. Either character may end the effects of the ritual by spending a simple action to remove or break their piece of jewelry. A character may only be affected by one instance of this ritual at a time.

To cast this ritual, you must draw magical runes in animal blood on each wall of a room no larger than 10 square feet for each dot of the Occult skill you possess. Thereafter, any item brought into the room (or that was in the room when this ritual was cast) that is more technologically complex than a crossbow ceases to function. Any object powered by electricity temporarily becomes useless and complex weapons such as guns will not fire. The Storyteller is the final arbiter of what is affected by a Dead Zone. A Dead Zone lasts for a-year-and-a-day. The blood used to create a Dead Zone does not fade until the ritual's duration ends or the magical runes are destroyed.

This ritual allows you to enter a frenzied state, harnessing the Beast's hunger to bolster your Physical abilities. To prepare it, you incite the Beast's hunger by feeding solely on animal blood for 3 nights prior to its casting on the third night. Thereafter, once you have consumed 3 points of Blood from a single target, you may activate this ritual within 3 turns by spending a simple action. If you do, you immediately enter into an elevated state of frenzy. In this state, you are subject to the standard effects of frenzy and may also use the Strength focus against any target whose blood you have consumed 3 or more points of during that night. You also gain a +2 wild card bonus in any challenges related to Grappling these targets. If you already have the Strength focus, you may use the Disarm, Grapple, Knock Down, or Pierce the Heart combat maneuvers against those targets without spending a point of Willpower. You may still claim this bonus even if you have consumed their blood in a way that does not provoke a blood bond, such as the focus benefit of Path of Blood: Theft of Vitae or Green Path: Boughs Below. If unused, this ritual expires at the end of the night.

To perform this ritual you must grind a small mirror into dust and mix it with liquid silver to create a thick paste that you then coat one of your hands with. For the remainder of the night, you may touch a single object and use Path of Conjuration: Magic of the Smith to create a perfect copy of the object you are touching. If the object is an item or piece of equipment it retains all of its qualities, including magical ones. Objects that are attuned or coded to others retain those characteristics. The forgery lasts until sunrise. Once you create one forgery the silver coating on your hand disappears.

This ritual allows a group of Tremere to channel power to bolster a single target. To cast this ritual, all parties must know the ritual and spend a point of Blood. They must form a symbolic triangle, designate a champion, and then spend 20 minutes in ritual chant. After this time has ended, the champion may then leave the ritual pyramid and perform magic with the strength of the other Tremere involved (the supporters) who continue to chant to lend their power. For each supporter that continues to chant, the champion receives a +2 wild card bonus to all challenges that utilize the champions Occult skill in the formation of the challenge test pools. For this ritual to remain in effect, the supporters of the ritual must concentrate and spend their standard action to maintain the ritual by audibly chanting the champion's name. All participants may rise and walk but must remain one step away from each other and continue to chant in order to continue to grant their power. Clever foes fighting against this ritual will often try to knock out at least one supporter to weaken the champion. Any participant who is unable or unwilling to chant ceases to be counted but may rejoin as soon as she is able to meet the requirements. Effects which remove the ability to speak or that cause silence such as Silence of Death will remove the benefits of any supporter so affected. There must be at least three Tremere consisting of 2 supporters and 1 champion who all know the ritual to cast this spell, but no more than 10 Tremere in total can participate. The ritual ends when the last supporter ceases to chant, the champion leaves the view of the supporters, or when there are no two supporters within one step of each other.

This ritual requires a ritual chant wherein you admonish and judge a venomous animal for the sins of your Path, then ritually slays the animal and ingests its venom. This ritualistic approximation of judgement and diablerie realigns you with your higher purpose. Drinking the venom does not harm you. Scorpions are often chosen, but poisonous toads function just as well. Upon completion, if you are on a Path, you will cease to appear as if you are on a Path for the remainder of the night, instead appearing as a vampire on Humanity. You may use this ritual upon yourself or others. While this ritual is fundamentally aligned with the Path of Blood, it will function just as well on those who follow other Paths. However, many Sorcerers believe this ritual should only be for the benefit of those following the Path of Blood and are known to severely punish those who use this ritual to benefit practitioners of other Paths of Enlightenment.

Take a small sample of your ancestral soil and mix it with fresh rainwater and a point of your Blood to create a paste. Thereafter, you may spend a standard action to trace an arcane sigil onto your body, granting you the Rugged merit for the next hour. Any wounds assigned to those health levels disappear at the end of the hour. If you already possess the Rugged merit, this ritual has no effect. This ritual and the paste created by it may only be used on you. A Koldun may only have a single application of this paste in existence at a time; creating a new application will render an older one inert.

Blood Contract creates an unbreakable agreement between two parties who sign it of their own free will. The contract must be written in your blood. All clauses in the contract must be understood by all parties and responsibilities must be listed implicitly. Each party referenced directly in the contract must sign her agreement to the stipulations in her own blood. A Blood Contract must include the following three clauses: - A clear description of the service or favor provided by the individual who is being contracted. - A clear description of the payment provided by the individual doing the contracting. - The terms under which the Blood Contract can be terminated. These clauses do not have to be fair, but they must exist for the Blood Contract to function. Attempts to add clauses that forbid the destroying of the contract, override the required clauses, or absolve an individual from the consequences of breaching the contract, cause the ritual to immediately fail. Anyone who signs said contract is now mystically bound and must follow it to the letter, including the thaumaturge, if she is one of the signing parties. Violators automatically suffer enough damage to cause them to enter into torpor. Should someone be foolish enough to violate the contract, both parties sense it immediately. It is possible to coerce an individual into signing a Blood Contract with threats, but if a character is compelled to sign a contract with a supernatural power, the ritual fails. _Sample Blood Contract:_ Percival (the target) must do his best to ensure that no one discovers that Dominic (the caster) killed Prince Leon. In return, Dominic will teach Percival four powers of Dominate over the next six months. This contract shall be nullified if the circumstances of Prince Leon's death become publicly known without Percival's involvement.

You must ingest the elixir for the ritual to take effect, suffering 1 level of aggravated damage, which cannot be reduced or negated. Afterwards, anyone who consumes your blood suffers a point of aggravated damage per point of Blood ingested. This damage cannot be reduced or negated. Cobra's Favor remains in effect for one month.

If you succeed in an opposed challenge against your target, she loses her highest 3 dots of Fortitude, starting with any elder Fortitude powers she possesses. If the target has more than three elder Fortitude powers, she may choose which powers are lost. If your target is Stamina-focused, she loses two Fortitude powers, rather than three. Should the target survive until sunrise, this ritual ends and all of her Fortitude returns. If Paper Flesh removes the prerequisites for your character's Fortitude-based techniques, you lose access to those techniques until your Fortitude returns. Any character who loses Fortitude automatically realizes that she has been affected by a power, and realizes the manner in which she is more physically vulnerable. Unless you know the victim's birth name, you must target someone who is physically present when you cast the ritual. If you know the victim's birth name, you can target her at a range of up to 10 miles.

Anyone touching your Stone of the True Form reverts to her normal shape, deactivating all transformative powers. Further, individuals cannot activate transformative powers for the remainder of this turn and for the next full turn after having touched the stone. Stone of the True Form can also temporarily undo physical changes made by uses of Vicissitude. Stone of the True Form is effective even if the target is not solid. A cloud of mist can be "touched" by a Stone of the True Form by passing the stone through the mist. This movement does not affect targets who are completely insubstantial, such as those in the psychic plane. With a Stone of the True Form, you can strike an individual within 10 steps by throwing the stone at her, if you succeed in an opposed challenge using your Physical attribute + Athletics versus your target's Physical attribute + Dodge. Alternately, you can hold a Stone of True Form in your hand and use the Disarm combat maneuver to touch your target with the stone. When used in this way, the Disarm combat maneuver doesn't disarm your opponent, but does bring the stone into contact long enough to affect the target. A Stone of the True Form lasts indefinitely, but you can only have one Stone of the True Form in existence at a time. If you create a new Stone of the True Form, the first one is destroyed.

To create a Blade of Eternal Thirst, you must carve a bladed weapon out of bone and immerse it in 3 points of your own Blood. This requires you to have 2 or more dots of the skill Craft: Weaponsmithing. Once the ritual is complete the weapon does aggravated damage. In addition, when the weapon successfully strikes an enemy resulting in at least one point of damage (determined after the target's Fortitude or similar defensive abilities), the blade consumes 1 point of Blood which is magically preserved inside the weapon. A Blade of Eternal Thirst can store up to 3 points of Blood which will retain its mundane and magical properties. While wielding the sword and by spending a simple action, you can magically absorb the points of Blood, drawing from the oldest point first. However, you are subject to any effects the blood has such as drugs or toxins, the blood bond, or powers such as Acid Blood. Finally, by spending a standard action you may force a single point of Blood out of the blade and into a container if so desired. You may only create one Blade of Eternal Thirst. If you create another the previous one is destroyed along with any blood it contains. Only the creator of a Blade can utilize its benefits, including the ability to do aggravated damage; in the hands of anyone else it is a mundane weapon. A Blade of Eternal Thirst remains enchanted for one month but each month after its creation you may soak it in a point of your Blood to extend its enchantment by another 30 days. If a Blade of Eternal Thirst loses its enchantment for any reason, or the weapon is broken, any blood stored within it is destroyed and cannot be recovered. Finally if a Blade of Eternal Thirst is targeted by the thaumaturgical ritual Perfect Forgery or similar powers, only the Blade is copied; any blood contained within is not duplicated. All other limitations of Perfect Forgery apply as normal, including only the creator of the original Blade of Eternal Thirst being able to utilize the effects of a forgery.

Certamen is the formal magical duel practiced by members of clan Tremere involving runic circles and impressive displays of Thaumaturgy. It is traditionally used to resolve deep disputes between clanmates when negotiation has failed, but a superior may also order her subordinates to Certamen if she feels it is appropriate. Certamen involves two duelists and a judge. No other parties are allowed to participate. A participant does not need to know the ritual to participate, as it is typically the judge who performs the ritual. A typical Certamen usually proceeds as follows: an aggrieved party will challenge another to Certamen and ask for terms that reflect the level of her grievance. The challenged party may accept or insist on different terms; however, seeking to downplay the level of a slight is viewed as cowardly. The challenged party traditionally selects the judge, which the challenger should accept within reason. When the judge is determined and agrees to oversee the Certamen, she will set the terms of the duel. Most often these terms may have already been agreed to by the participants, but the judge has final say. One or both of the participants may still withdraw, though to do so once a judge has been chosen carries significant shame. The terms of the Certamen set forth the victory conditions. The parties should agree amongst themselves on the victory condition. If the parties cannot agree, the judge decides the victory condition. The duel ends immediately when the victory condition is met. The following list outlines the various victory conditions to select from: - **Judge's Decision:** Under this condition, the Certamen ends under some event of the judge's choosing and the judge will choose a winner. For example, the duel will last for 7 turns, after which the judge will determine a winner. Other terms may also have a judge's decision clause for the sake of length. Alternatively, the judge may rule the contest will last until one participant successfully uses three different Thaumaturgy powers or three different Thaumaturgy paths on her opponent. - **Capture the Runic Circle:** The Certamen ends when one participant captures her opponent's runic circle. This condition is considered met when a participant is the only one standing in her opponent's circle and takes no damage for an entire turn. - **Incapacitate Opponent:** More serious matters call for the incapacitation of one of the participants. The judge will end the match before final death can occur. - **Death of Opponent:** Reserved to settle only the most serious accusations such as treason, the Certamen ends when one party has killed the other. The judge will prepare the Certamen area. Depending on the mood of the judge, the space available, or the nature of the challenge, it can take one of many forms. Solemn duels may feature two circles in an outdoor setting to take place in the last minutes before sunrise, and more politicized duels may involve wide spaces with ample room for spectators and multiple runic circles. The judge will determine the specifics of the arena, including its size, number of runic circles, and how far apart they are set. Next is the construction of the runic circles. A single runic circle is 2 steps across. A Certamen has at least 2 runic circles, one for each participant. However, it is common enough for a Certamen to feature multiple runic circles for either side. Typically, this is an equal number of circles for each side, as a participant who has fewer is seen as having a disadvantage. Once this number is chosen, each participant may take turns constructing a runic circle with the challenger going first. Note that other rituals that modify the arena space, including those that construct defensive measures, are not allowed as part of Certamen. To receive the benefits of a runic circle, a participant must be the only one standing within it, and she must be entirely within it. Circles are never created concentrically, and participants cannot receive benefits from multiple circles by attempting to straddle two or more. The types of runic circles are: - **Enhancing:** The participant chooses a path of Thaumaturgy when she creates this runic circle. She receives a +2 wild card bonus when using her primary path of Thaumaturgy while standing within the circle. - **Regenerating:** A participant standing in this circle recovers 1 point of normal or aggravated damage at the end of each turn. - **Rejuvenating:** A participant standing in this circle recovers 2 points of Blood at the end of each turn. - **Stoic:** A participant standing within this circle receives a +2 wild card bonus to her defensive pools. - **Quicksilver:** If a participant is standing within this runic circle, she may use the Burst of Speed combat maneuver for free and apply a +5 bonus to her initiative score. It is believed that there may exist other types of runic circles which function within Certamen but that have been forbidden or lost over time. Certain secret societies and even members of the Tremere hierarchy are believed to have their own secret runes that they jealously guard, should anyone be foolish enough to challenge them. Runic circles are part of the Certamen ritual and do not function outside of a proper Certamen duel. Once the runic circles are constructed, the judge will set any additional terms. Traditionally, all Thaumaturgy is allowed, as are Celerity, Potence, and Fortitude. Usually, participants are allowed time in advance for ritual preparation, though this may be measured, limited, or even forbidden depending on the contest. In contests where the aim is to capture the opponent's runic circle, the disciplines of Dominate and Presence are traditionally forbidden. Use of Possession or other powers where the participant does not compete in her own body are always forbidden. Other clans' disciplines such as Dementation, Protean, and Obtenebration are not allowed without prior agreement, as the duel is intended to be a contest of magic. Vicissitude is not permitted under any circumstances nor is Obeah or Valeren. At the appointed time, each participant will take their place in one of her runic circles which will serve as her primary runic circle. The combat begins at the judge's signal, and each party may act on their initiative. The ritual prevents any magical effects from leaving the designated area, such as a stray Flame Bolt or uses of Firestorm. Any magic used within the dueling area also takes on a more pronounced aesthetic; Force Bolts visibly ripple the air and Lightning Bolts surge with dramatic effect. Certamen ends once the chosen victory condition is met or if the judge calls for a halt in the contest, in which case the judge will then determine a winner or a draw.

To learn this ritual you must be skilled in the Path of Caelestikinesis. To cast this ritual, you must first ritually bind the hands of two willing vampires together, one of which can be yours. The two participants must each spend 1 point of their own Blood to spill on the binding as you speak the words and finalize the magic with a point of your own Blood. From the moment you untie their hands, the pair remains mystically connected, each sharing the other's condition. As the caster of the ritual, unless you participate in the binding as one of the two ritual participants, you remain unaffected. Any post-Fortitude damage, healing, or effects that happen to one party will also manifest on the other party who cannot mitigate or negate the damage. Should one party enter torpor, the other does as well. Similarly, any positive effects applied after the casting are mirrored, but existing conditions from before the ritual was enacted do not transfer across. In addition, a character's pre-existing derangement will not be mirrored, but a new derangement caused by Dementation inflicted on one party will affect the other party in the same way. You may choose to end the effects of this ritual early, but not instantaneously. Both parties must agree to end it, just as they agreed to start it. To do so, you must re-tie the pair's hands with the same binding you used to enact the ritual and sever the cord. No one can be under the effects of more than one application of Conduit of Fate; if they attempt to participate in a second ritual casting while the first is active, the second will fail and the original will remain active. If not voluntarily severed, this ritual ends in 30 days.

Upon the completion of this ritual, for the remainder of the evening your magic takes on a powerful and destructive quality. Whenever your Thaumaturgy powers deal damage, the first point dealt cannot be reduced or negated. The type of the damage does not change (aggravated or normal), and any damage reduction powers are applied to any additional points of damage beyond the first, if any. If your power does both aggravated and normal damage, apply this effect to the aggravated damage. For example, if you have this ritual active and successfully use the Thaumaturgy power Engulf on a target with Aegis, the first point of damage is unsoakable. Your target's Fortitude is then applied to the second point, ignoring it. If you scored an exceptional success to inflict 3 points of damage, the first point is unsoakable, but your target's Fortitude would apply to the second and third point of damage, ignoring those. However, use of this ritual causes your magic to become distinctly unnatural, and as a result any magical effect you use is overtly Masquerade-breaking. Any phenomenon you conjure such as flames or fog may have an unnatural color, and otherwise surreptitious magics are accompanied by eldritch effects, such as ghostly runes, sparks, or bizarre rays of light. This power is not infernal in nature, but rather a more violent and disruptive form of magic.

To cast this ritual, you must obtain a piece of wood from a tree struck by lightning that must then be fashioned into a rod. Thereafter, whenever you hold the rod and use it with the Path of Weather Control: Lightning, your bolt does aggravated damage. In addition, if you have successfully struck a character with your lightning bolt, you may cause it to arc and attack a second character within 3 steps of the first. This does not require any additional Blood or actions. To do so, you must immediately initiate a second opposed challenge with your new target. If you succeed, apply the regular effects of Path of Weather Control: Lightning, but your target will take 1 fewer point of damage. You may use this ability only once per turn. Only you may use your own Lightning Rod and you may only have one at a time. Creating an additional rod causes the previous rod to become inert.

This ritual requires the Sorcerer, a would-be diablerist, and three other participants who must be either Assamites or Path of Blood adherents. However, only the Sorcerer needs to know the ritual. The diablerist then names a victim she intends to diablerize and leads the group in a 30-minute ceremony during which she dons a robe and mask, and ritually enacts the myth of Marduk, taking the part of the god. The other participants take the parts of Marduk's mother, Ea, his consort, Sarpanitu, and the chaos dragon, Tiamat. Tiamat "kills" Marduk as his mother and consort mourn, but Marduk "resurrects" himself and "slays" her, symbolically making her into the body of the world. Upon completion of this 30-minute ceremony, the beneficiary of this ritual has 24 hours to diablerize her named target. It is not uncommon to perform this ritual with the target already present and captive. When the diablerie is complete, the victim's sire, her sire's childer, all of the target's childer, and anyone in a full blood bond with the victim share her final sensations as she perishes. Furthermore, all of the aforementioned suffer horrific flashbacks of this event when they are in the presence of the diablerist. Those affected by these waking nightmares suffer a -3 penalty to their offensive pools against the diablerist as long as the diablerist is in their presence. This effect lasts for 3 months but can be ended early if the caster chooses to spend a simple action.

You must gather a handful of pure sand, wash it clean, and allow it to dry in the sun undisturbed for one day. Then, gathering the sand, you mix it with perfumes, natron (a salt mixture from dry lake beds), and one point of your own Blood, reciting a prayer to the life-giving Nile. When you next encounter a supernatural creature, you may blow the sand at it while reciting a prayer to a god within your religion who has dominion over that type of supernatural. Most Followers of Set use their respective pantheons, with of Egyptian gods Dionysian or Hall of Jörmungandr being the most commonly invoked. Blowing the sand requires a standard action and success in an opposed challenge using your Mental attribute + Occult skill versus the target's Mental attribute + Willpower. You may only target a single visible character within 3 steps and the sand is expended regardless of if you succeed. If you succeed in the opposed challenge, creatures not native to the current plane, such as wraiths, spirits, and summoned elementals, are banished to their home realms and cannot return for 24 hours. The Storyteller may determine that spirits of sufficient power, such as Incarna or higher, are immune to this effect. If used on a vampire in Psychic Projection or a character who has been Soul Stolen, this ritual returns her to her body. However, these targets must be somehow visible to you to be targeted. Supernatural creatures native to this plane that are successfully targeted with the sand (including other vampires, changelings, werewolves, and earthbound demons) lose their ability to heal or be healed for 3 turns. This does not interfere with effects which reduce or prevent damage, such as Fortitude. Multiple applications of Severing Sands to the same native supernatural creature do not stack; however, once the 3 turns have lapsed, a new successful application will result in the loss of their ability to heal or be healed for another 3 turns. This sand only works in your hands as only you can invoke the required blessing. You may have up to 3 applications of it in existence at a time with newer creations rendering the oldest inert.

You must spend 4 hours performing an elemental ceremony recognizing the four supreme elements. Each Koldun performs this ritual differently. Upon its completion, and for the next lunar month, the elemental summoned when you use Elemental Mastery 5: Elemental Summoning gains the following effects based on elemental type: - **Fire Elemental:** It gains a +3 bonus to initiative and the ability to act during the first Celerity round where it may use its Ranged Attack. - **Earth Elemental:** It gains 2 additional health levels, and its unarmed attacks deal 2 points of normal damage, or 3 points on an exceptional success. - **Water Elemental:** While in its presence, you gain a free retest against any frenzy test using the energies of the water to calm yourself. In addition, while you are in a state of frenzy you feel the power of the ocean's rage, gaining a +1 to Physical attack test pools, in addition to any bonuses you receive for frenzy. - **Air Elemental:** It may now make a ranged attack (instead of an unarmed attack) that does no damage but knocks the target prone. The air elemental can also spend a standard action to target its summoner with a gentler gust of wind, allowing you to take one additional step the next time you spend a simple action on movement. This second effect does not count towards your maximum number of attackers.